Infiniti Red Bull Renault’s return to form

One Red Bull enjoyed a quiet race and huge benefits while the other clashed with two silver arrows and survives to tell the tale.

There was no short on drama in the Hungarian Grand Prix, even from the race start which was aborted because Felipe Massa had parked his car out of position making the Hungarian GP a 69 lap race rather than a 70 lap race. While all attention had been on the scarlet Prancing Horses at the start, the same attention was soon directed to Daniel Ricciardo especially who engaged in battles with the 2014 champions.

Daniel Ricciardo had a bad start, the Aussie lost positions to both team mate Daniil Kyvat and Williams’ Valterri Bottas. But a slow moving Kyvat, who was struggling with tyre grip, was told not to hold up his team mate, so Ricciardo had easily driven pass him to chase down Bottas.

Kyvat continued to struggle with his tyres even after the pit stops allowing Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg to gain track position on him. Kyvat was right behind Hulkenberg when the German’s front wing failed which saw him crashed into the barriers at Turn 1. Fortunately, Kyvat avoided both the debris and any damages that would have ruined his race.

The race was diverted into the pit lane to allow track marshals to clean up the debris on the track, this is the first time since anybody could remember a race was diverted into the pit lane to allow for track clean up during a race! Kyvat was promoted into the top five behind Bottas, Ricciardo and championship leader Lewis Hamilton.

At the restart, Ricciardo in the quicker Red Bull engaged a struggling Hamilton in a clash of clans which resulted in a broken front wing for the world champion and damaged bodywork on Ricciardo’s car. The Aussie managed to make the overtaking move on Hamilton stick even though he was forced wide, Hamilton was subsequently handed a race penalty for causing a collision.

Both Bottas and Kyvat quickly took advantage of the slow moving Hamilton to gain track position, in the process all three cars ran wide allowing Torro Rosso’s Max Verstappen to catch up with the trio. By the time the trio of cars returned to track, Kyvat had already passed Hamilton while Bottas clipped Verstappen’s front wing which resulted with him limping back to the pits with a punctured tyre.

Up front, there were concerns about Ricciardo’s lose bodywork bringing out the black and orange flag, but Ricciardo decided to defy all odds and chased down the leaders instead with ease. So while everybody was busy cracking jokes about the futility of an expensive wind tunnel, both Red Bulls started pulling away from the rest of the field to hunt down the leaders bringing the Torro Rosso of Verstappen along with them.

But the race was far from over for the Aussie, Ricciardo’s pace brought him right up against second place man Nico Rosberg’s tail and that saw both drivers engage in another scuffle. As both drivers approached Turn 1, Ricciardo deployed his DRS wing to easily get ahead of Rosberg at the turn only to have Rosberg clip his front wing as he tried to defend his position.

This sent both Ricciardo and Rosberg into the pits with a broken front wing and a punctured tyre respectively promoting Daniil Kyvat to second place and into his first ever podium finish. Ricciardo rejoined the race after a front wing change and fresh tyres in third place. Even though Kyvat was handed a 10-second time penalty for passing Hamilton off the track therefor gaining an advantage, Kyvat has a big enough gap from Ricciardo to maintain his second place.

Red Bull has not seen both their drivers finishing on the podium since the 2014 Singapore GP and after a largely dismal first part of the 2015 season it is with great relief for the team to have both drivers back on the podium again. But like the Scuderia Ferrari team, Red Bull and their drivers dedicated their double delights to the late Jules Bianchi.

“Fantastic race, Bianchi would have loved it.”

Christian Horner

Jerrica Leong