BUDAPEST — The sudden appearance of a car wing in the middle of the racetrack after 15 laps of processional racing changed the entire character of the Hungarian Grand Prix outside Budapest on Sunday.
The safety car took to the track to allow marshals to clear the wing off the track, and that led to a chain of events that eventually handed the victory and the lead in the drivers’ series to the man who had until then no hope of winning.
Mark Webber, the driver for Red Bull who started second but lost a position by the first corner, took the lead of the race after the incident and never let go.
It was Webber’s fourth victory of the year, the sixth of his career and his first in Hungary. It came in his 150th Formula One race and catapulted him into the lead of the championship with both a psychological and point advantage over his teammate, Sebastian Vettel, who had led the race for the first 15 laps.
“It was a bit of a gift for me today,” said Webber. “I have not had a lot until now, so I can take this one.”
Vettel was penalized for an illegal move at the restart after the safety-car period, and he finished third, behind Fernando Alonso, in a Ferrari.
Webber’s Red Bull team took the lead in the constructors’ championship, with 312 points, to 304 for McLaren Mercedes and 238 for Ferrari.
Webber leads the drivers’ series with 161 points, Lewis Hamilton is second with 157, and Vettel is third with 151 points.
Hamilton, the McLaren driver who led the series before the race, dropped out with a technical problem.
“I was accelerating out of Turn 1 when I felt a sudden vibration and then a loss of drive,” said Hamilton. “I initially thought it was a drive-shaft failure, but it now appears that it was a gearbox problem.”
Vettel, who started the race in pole position, made a pit stop after the safety car took to the track, and he should have held onto his lead. But at the restart, Vettel made an error that cost him any chance of victory.
The German driver left a large distance between himself and Webber and the safety car in order to hold back Alonso’s Ferrari. But in leaving more than 10 car lengths of space between them, he had unknowingly broken a rule and was given a drive-through penalty that pushed him into third, behind Alonso, destroying his chance to win.
“The safety car caused a lot of chaos,” Vettel said. “I did not understand what was happening, so, of course, I am very disappointed.
“We were the fastest car out there.”
Webber, 33, was one of the few drivers who did not make a pit stop during the safety-car period, which handed him the lead. But the Australian would have to make his own pit stop later, at which point he would have given the lead back to Vettel.
Now, however, with Vettel in third position and Alonso in second, in order to return to the race in the lead from his pit stop, Webber needed more than 20 seconds’ lead on Alonso if he wanted to retake the lead after his pit stop.
The race suddenly had a layer of suspense, as Webber spent the next 25 laps after the restart on Lap 18 trying to built up a large gap between himself and the Spaniard and setting one fastest lap after another in the process.
Likewise, Vettel began to catch up to Alonso. But the track in the countryside outside Budapest is so narrow, slippery and sinuous, that it is next to impossible to pass.
Vettel pushed Alonso throughout the race, often at just half a second behind. But he finally gave up a few laps from the end of the race and finished third.
The safety-car period caused troubles for more than just the leaders. As the majority of the cars charged into the pits to make a tire change during the safety car period, the Renault of Robert Kubica and the Force India car of Adrian Sutil collided, knocking both drivers out of the race.
At the same time, the right rear wheel of Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes fell off his car and rolled up the pit lane as mechanics dodged it and tried to service their cars. The wheel struck a mechanic at the Williams team, and he was sent to the hospital with an arm injury.
With a few laps remaining in the race, Rosberg’s teammate, Michael Schumacher, was in 10th in the other Mercedes and trying to hold Rubens Barrichello behind him. At more than 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, an hour, Schumacher pushed Barrichello’s Williams toward the wall on the main straight.
The German, who had frequently been penalized for dangerous driving tactics, was later penalized for impeding Barrichello during the overtaking maneuver. Schumacher was penalized 10 positions at the next race, the Belgian Grand Prix on Aug. 29.
“Usually with a crazy guy like that I would lift off, but not today, absolutely not,” Barrichello told Spanish television, adding that it was one of the most horrendous moves ever made by the German, who returned this year from retirement. “To stop for three years and then come back and do something like that, we don’t need it.”
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