Raikkonen’s rise to sixth earns Driver of the Weekend win

2016 Hungarian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend result

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Kimi Raikkonen was voted as driver of the weekend for the Hungarian Grand Prix after eight-place climb to finish sixth.

He only received a score of two out of five in the driver ratings, but with 38% of your votes Raikkonen topped the poll for the first time since Bahrain last year.

Kimi Raikkonen’s Hungarian Grand Prix weekend

Raikkonen’s weekend began to go awry in the rain-hit qualifying session. He made it through the very wet Q1 but as the track dried quickly in the second segment he was one of the first drivers to complete their final lap.

Although Raikkonen improved his time with his final effort it was beaten by 13 of the remaining 15 drivers on track before the chequered flag appeared.

However this did allow him the advantage of running the race entirely on brand new tyres, and he made the most of it. Impressive overtakes early in the race on Sergio Perez and Esteban Gutierrez helped him slice through the field.

However as in Spain he reached a roadblock in the form of Max Verstappen. Raikkonen lost part of his front wing as he tried without success to penetrate the Red Bull driver’s vigorous defences, and had to settle for sixth.

Raikkonen for me this time. Great fight from 14th grid position, should have finished right behind Seb. Poor qualifying, but more of a team error, not so much Kimi’s fault.
Dr Sven (@svend1)

I´m going with Raikkonen, because the qualifying result was not really his fault in my opinion.

And his race was stunning, especially his performance on the soft tyres.
Banana88x (@banana88x)

Staying that long behind a car with less power and much older and harder tyres is great work.

How he managed to keep his own tyres working all that time is fantastic.
sethje (@seth-space)

Raikkonen maybe if it was driver of the day – good strategy starting with softs long stint and then ultra aggressive with two sets of super softs.

But he can’t be driver of the weekend because of his poor qualifying. He should have been in the top six.
Arnoud van Houwelingen

Hungarian Grand Prix winners and losers

Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo also picked up a solid number of votes after their strong drives. Carlos Sainz Jnr also received lots of plaudits in the comments – but missed the votes to match.

On the opposite end of the scale Jolyon Palmer picked up just two votes despite possibly his best race of the year where he nearly picked up his maiden points, only throwing them away late on with a spin. Nonetheless five drivers received less votes than Palmer, both Williams’, both Force India’s, and Palmer’s team mate Magnussen.

Despite his spin I decided to vote for Palmer. Solid qualifying and was ready for his first points. Shame he didn’t finish the race in tenth.
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)

As a Raikkonen fan, I really wanted to give him my vote.

Hamilton drove flawlessly this weekend especially when traffic would push him back within several tenths and then he’d immediately open up a 1.5-second gap.
Erik Olson (@eriko)

I don’t think any of the front-runners were overly impressive. Sure, the top four drove really well indeed, all on a very similar level.

But if I had to chose a driver who consistently performed strongly during the weekend, punching slightly above his car’s weight, I’d pick Alonso. His spin in qualifying and his warning for leaving the track in the race show how close he was to over-driving the car, but he kept it all together and achieved the best possible result in a tightly-packed midfield.
Nase

There’s a guy called Carlos Sainz Jnr in this F1 field, he keeps impressing me week-in week-out, but few notice him.
Jayfreese Knight (@jeff1s)

It has to be Sainz for me. Equalled his best qualifying of the year, and once again stuck his Toro Rosso in a really strong points position. He is simply making mincemeat of Kvyat.
Craig Woollard (@craig-o)

2016 Driver of the Weekend results

RaceDOTW winnerVotes
2016 Australian Grand PrixRomain Grosjean61.0%
2016 Bahrain Grand PrixRomain Grosjean39.4%
2016 Chinese Grand PrixDaniel Ricciardo44.7%
2016 Russian Grand PrixKevin Magnussen32.6%
2016 Spanish Grand PrixMax Verstappen68.5%
2016 Monaco Grand PrixDaniel Ricciardo49.6%
2016 Canadian Grand PrixLewis Hamilton28.5%
2016 European Grand PrixSergio Perez67.3%
2016 Austrian Grand PrixPascal Wehrlein43.2%
2016 British Grand PrixMax Verstappen55.2%
2016 Hungarian Grand PrixKimi Raikkonen38.3%

2016 Hungarian Grand Prix

Browse all 2016 Hungarian Grand Prix articles

16 comments on “Raikkonen’s rise to sixth earns Driver of the Weekend win”

  1. I’m surprised Alonso didn’t win it. He finished seventh in every single session. And given that Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull are the clear front-runners, that suggests to me that Alonso literally got the maximum out of his car every time he got in it last weekend.

    Given that, I could forgive him his spin in the closing moments of Q3 on a still semi-wet track.

    1. I think the same @willwood, I was quite surprised to see Alonso being overlooked.
      Raikkonen rising to 6th was to be expected, he’s car being far superior to those of the drivers around him on the grid.And there are more opportunity to overtake in Hungary than in Monaco.

  2. I personally thought Ricciardo or Alonso deserved DOTW more.

  3. Baffled that someone who performed so badly in qualifying could win driver of the weekend. I believe there was an article somewhere after qualifying (on Autosport or Sky if memory serves) debunking the “it was just track evolution” argument for his poor qualifying result.

  4. ColdFly F1 (@)
    29th July 2016, 12:26

    Staying that long behind a car with less power and much older and harder tyres is great work.

    sounds like sarcasm.

    1. @coldfly Doing 32 laps on softs in the last stint isn’t a big thing. Kimi managed 29 in the first stint.

      Kimi was flying in the initial couple of laps after that last pitstop. He caught Max soon and with only one decent opportunity to overtake, all Max had to do was block that.

      Max’s tires were old but not to the extent the comment describes. Even before pitting for new SS, he was faster than Vettel on softs who had just pitted.

      If Kimi is chided for being behind Max for too long, same can be said for Max for failing to take Kimi when Vettel came out of the pits. Effectively ended his podium chances.

  5. I voted for Ricciardo as DotW but to give KR a rating of 2/5 is one of the biggest disagreements(and judging by the vote the majority of F1 fanatics) had ever had with Keith Collantine

  6. …and rightfully so!

    1. This magnificent rally-like pass on Nasr alone was enough to earn DotW: https://twitter.com/FiftyBuckss/status/758433809859801088

      Amazing pace in the race throughout. Should’ve finished even higher if not for Verstappen’s dangerous driving. Still rising from P14 to sixth in a dry Hungarian GP is a massively impressive effort.

      I was busy headbanging at a Metal festival last Saturday so I missed the quali, but the majority of the people (incl. Ferrari themselves) agreed that it wasn’t Kimi’s mistake but the team’s. So I didn’t take it into account when voting Kimi.

  7. Undeserved. Reminiscent of his 2008 campaign: Massively underperforming on Saturday, before showing reasonable speed (albeit slower than the respective team mate) on Sunday, looking impressive against cars that struggle to lap within 2 seconds of his car’s pace.
    I mean, he finished 6th with a car that virtually couldn’t finish any lower. The only reason why he had to fight for that position was his own lack of pace in Q2. Stuff like that: https://twitter.com/FiftyBuckss/status/758433809859801088 does look impressive, but that only ever works against competitors whose sole ambition is to stay out of your way and keep their tyres alive (as well as not being crashed out by your antics) while you DRS your way past them.

    1. Neil Debacquer
      29th July 2016, 19:40

      “lack of pace” you never heard of track evolution on a drying track?

  8. I feel like I was watching a different race to the people who voted. Watching him stuck behind Grosjean and then Verstappen I didn’t see a deserving driver of the week, I saw someone in a faster car that couldn’t stick a passing move.

    The footage focused on the Raikkonen and Verstappen battle so we didn’t get to see how things were unfolding up the road with Ricciardo and Vettel but I think the more deserving driver was the one in that battle holding a faster Ferrari behind and probably not moving in the braking zone to do so.

    1. Absolutely.

    2. @philipgb Riiciardo and Vettel has nothing to show at all. While Kimi battling Max for at least 10 laps before chequered flag, Vettel only get into DRS range in the final 3 laps. I waws watching the gap with live timing app and I knew from the beginning Vettel won’t have enough time to actually battle Ricciardo for 3rd position.

  9. On the opposite end of the scale Jolyon Palmer picked up just two votes despite possibly his best race of the year

    So at least I wasn’t alone,…

  10. There’s a guy called Carlos Sainz Jnr in this F1 field, he keeps impressing me week-in week-out, but few notice him.
    Jayfreese Knight (@jeff1s)

    It has to be Sainz for me. Equalled his best qualifying of the year, and once again stuck his Toro Rosso in a really strong points position. He is simply making mincemeat of Kvyat.
    Craig Woollard (@craig-o)

    I’m happy many see what he is, he a properly talented driver who has really come of age in F1 after a less than spectacular 2013 that did not warrant his drive for DAMS in 2014.

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