2012 HUNGARIAN GP

HUNGARORING LOTUS E20 (2nd)

Raikkonen didn’t quite string a lap together in qualifying at the Hungaroring and wound up fifth, with Lotus team-mate Romain Grosjean second. But, not for the first time in 2012 (the Bahrain GP, for example), his race pace and tyre preservation brought him into contention.

Things didn’t start well. Raikkonen’s KERS battery went flat and he duly lost a spot to Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari on the opening lap.

The KERS issue was only partially resolved, and Raikkonen could make no progress until Alonso pitted on lap 17 of 69, by which time the Finn was 15s behind leader Lewis Hamilton’s Mclaren. Raikkonen pitted last of the frontrunners and he easily leapfrogged Alonso, while team-mate Romain Grosjean harassed Hamilton.

When Jenson Button made his second stop from third place, Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull and Raikkonen unleashed their pace and closed on the leading duo. Red Bull, concerned about the Raikkonen threat, called Vettel in on lap 38 to avoid being undercut. But even on new medium rubber, the reigning world champion could not match the Lotus, despite its KERS issue.

“It was just extraordinary how much pace Kimi was able to unleash at that point,” said Lotus’s Alan Permane. “He just went crazy, and for a moment I thought we might even have been on to jump past Hamilton.”

Raikkonen’s tyres finally started to wilt and he pitted on lap 45. Such had been his speed that he exited to find himself alongside Grosjean, who had stopped six laps earlier, into the first corner. Raikkonen had the inside and eased his team-mate wide. Second was his, and with 23 laps to go he was 4.4s behind Hamilton.

Just six laps later the gap was under a second, but Raikkonen could not find a way past the Mclaren and had to settle for second. “If this had been a track where overtaking was possible, I think the result might have been very different,” admitted Hamilton.