Ferrari technical director James Allison admits Lewis Hamilton’s torrid Hungarian Grand Prix helped Sebastian Vettel secure his second Ferrari win at Budapest last Sunday.
The German made a rocket start from third on the grid to breeze past pole sitter Hamilton and lead team-mate Kimi Raikkonen into the first corner. The red duo quickly scampered away while the Mercedes driver endured a miserable opening lap and dropped down to tenth.
In a chaotic and action-packed race, Vettel then enjoyed a fairly smooth ride with Hamilton suffering more trouble by clashing with Daniel Ricciardo, which earned the championship leader a drive-through penalty.
Drawing parallels with Ferrari’s first 2015 win at Sepang, Allison lists Hamiton’s troubles as a key feature in both successes.
“I think the similarities are that if you get away well at the start and you are in free air and can have your race without compromise it makes a lot of difference to the overall race time,” he said.
“Another similarity is that the fastest of our competitors, Hamilton, was not there at the start because of his own difficulties and that was also the case in Malaysia.
“But I think probably the best similarity is at both of those tracks the car had good pace and when you have got good pace you can do good things.”
Coming off a couple of challenging grand prix weekends for Ferrari, Allison was glad to see the Italian squad put everything together as others faltered at the Hungaroring.
“I think that the last two or three races have been a bit sub-par for our team. We haven’t brought home what we should have done with the opportunities we had.
“This was more of a return to what we hope for in a weekend with some additional bonus thrown in by the difficulties of the people in front of us.”
REPORT: Vettel wins chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix from Kvyat
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