F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Raikkonen wins Hungarian GP Driver of the Day award

Kimi Raikkonen has been voted Driver of the Day for the Hungarian Grand Prix after climbing from 14th on the grid to finish sixth.

The Finn was caught out by a drying track in Q2, with a badly timed final run seeing him eliminated in 14th place. However, Raikkonen responded with an excellent drive on Sunday as a strong opening stint on soft tyres moved him up to seventh position by the time he emerged from his first pit stop.

Quickly dispatching Fernando Alonso, Raikkonen was extremely quick on the supersoft tyre and after his second stop reeled in Max Verstappen as he emerged as a podium contender. Raikkonen was unable to get past the Dutchman on the tight Hungaroring circuit, with slight contact damaging his front wing and halting any further progress.

However, his impress climb through the field saw Raikkonen - who recently signed a one-year contract extension at Ferrari - voted Driver of the Day for the first time this season.

The official Driver of the Day is a new award introduced this season, with fans voting for the best driver performance at each race. Max Verstappen currently has the most awards with four, having won the vote in Spain, Canada, Austria and Silverstone.

Other previous winners this season are Romain Grosjean in Australia and Bahrain, Daniil Kvyat - then racing for Red Bull - in China, Kevin Magnussen in Russia, and Sergio Perez in Monaco and Baku.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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