Vote for your 2016 Hungarian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend

2016 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Which F1 driver was the best performer during the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend?

Review how each driver got on below and vote for who impressed you the most during the last race weekend.

Driver performance summary

DriverStartedGap to team mate (Q)Laps leading team matePittedFinishedGap to team mate (R)
Lewis Hamilton2nd+0.143s66/7021st-1.977s
Nico Rosberg1st-0.143s4/7022nd+1.977s
Sebastian Vettel5th-1.353s61/7024th-20.831s
Kimi Raikkonen14th+1.353s9/7026th+20.831s
Felipe Massa18th+1.241s2/68218thNot on same lap
Valtteri Bottas10th-1.241s66/6829thNot on same lap
Daniel Ricciardo3rd-0.277s64/7023rd-21.12s
Daniil Kvyat12th+0.567s0/69216th+48.825s
Nico Hulkenberg9th-1.515s43/69210th-14.817s
Sergio Perez13th+1.515s26/69211th+14.817s
Kevin Magnussen19th+0.578s0/69215th+11.682s
Jolyon Palmer17th-0.578s69/69213th-11.682s
Max Verstappen4th+0.277s6/7025th+21.12s
Carlos Sainz Jnr6th-0.567s69/6928th-48.825s
Marcus Ericsson22nd+9.212s4/68320thNot on same lap
Felipe Nasr16th-9.212s64/68217thNot on same lap
Fernando Alonso7th-0.386s60/6027th
Jenson Button8th+0.386s0/602
Pascal Wehrlein20th-2.846s44/68219th-31.946s
Rio Haryanto21st+2.846s24/68121st+31.946s
Romain Grosjean11th-1.248s13/69214th+11.454s
Esteban Gutierrez15th+1.248s56/69212th-11.454s

    Vote for your driver of the weekend

    Which driver do you think did the best job throughout the race weekend?

    Who got the most out of their car in qualifying and the race? Who put their team mate in the shade?

    Cast your vote below and explain why you chose the driver you picked in the comments.

    Who was the best driver of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend?

    • Esteban Gutierrez (0%)
    • Romain Grosjean (0%)
    • Rio Haryanto (0%)
    • Pascal Wehrlein (0%)
    • Jenson Button (1%)
    • Fernando Alonso (16%)
    • Felipe Nasr (0%)
    • Marcus Ericsson (0%)
    • Carlos Sainz Jnr (7%)
    • Daniil Kvyat (0%)
    • Jolyon Palmer (0%)
    • Kevin Magnussen (0%)
    • Sergio Perez (0%)
    • Nico Hulkenberg (0%)
    • Max Verstappen (5%)
    • Daniel Ricciardo (10%)
    • Valtteri Bottas (0%)
    • Felipe Massa (0%)
    • Kimi Raikkonen (38%)
    • Sebastian Vettel (1%)
    • Nico Rosberg (0%)
    • Lewis Hamilton (20%)

    Total Voters: 488

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    Author information

    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    78 comments on “Vote for your 2016 Hungarian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend”

    1. Raikkonen.

      1. Your right, staying that long behind a car with less power and mucht older and harder tires is great work.
        How he managed to keep his own tires working all that time is fantastci!

      2. Why? There’s no standouts from the front runners. Alonso, Carlos were strong, Jolyon in spite of the spin was surprisingly strong, especially considering the fact he only did 15 mins of friday practice. Gutierrez keeps silently beating Roman on pace. Ham was likely to be on pole, he made a kamikaze move and then drove a perfect strategic race so I’m sure he ought to win the DOTW.

        1. Catching up to the leaders from 14th on the grid?

          1. Qualifying in P14 with the second or third best car on the grid?

            I agree that he did perform better than in qualifying, making a divergent strategy work well for him. But all in all, he simply delivered the pace his car had from the start of the weekend. P6 was the absolute minimum that could be achieved in a Ferrari, especially considering the huge gap to P7. Were there any outstanding overtakes by him? As far as I remember, he DRS’ed his way past Gutiérrez and Pérez, whose cars were 2 seconds down on pace. Other than that: Nothing. Just the usual moaning and complaining about Verstappen’s rough defensive driving.
            Merely a 3-star drive (out of 5) in my book.

            Personally, I don’t think any of the front-runners were overly impressive. Sure, the Top 4 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 overdriving the car, but he kept it all together and achieved the best possible result in a tightly packed midfield.

        2. Kimi was the fastest out there except for the Mercedes drivers who were clearly sandbagging.
          And Kimi was the only one to do any overtaking.
          And with help from a suborn Max the only one that left some carbon fiber on the track.

          Lewis was very good, excellent but, man, so boring; quite Prost-ish.

          So Kimi gets my vote. Had he made it past Max in the first laps of his last stint he would have caught Seb at 1.5s per lap. Would he have been allowed to pass Seb and go after Ricciardo, probably not but it looked like he had the pace to do it.
          Unfortunately, Max took his defending a little to far and he got away with it.
          Anyway, it is Ferrari’s job to make sure they have a good car also in the turn before the straight. It is very little use to be a bit faster on the straight if you can’t get a good exit out of the turn before.

    2. petebaldwin (@)
      24th July 2016, 20:30

      It’s a tough one as no-one really stood out so I’m voting based on a hunch…. Hamilton said he was driving as fast as he could but it seemed pretty clear to me that he wasn’t. He was “doing a Prost” and winning as slowly as possible in order to protect his engine. When he got held up in traffic, he instantly pulled out a 1s gap to make sure he was out of DRS. He did what he had to at the start and would have been on pole if it wasn’t for bad luck.

      It isn’t spectacular to watch but winning like this could save him 1 penalty which could prove vital later in the season.

      1. We watch for action.

        He races for the championship.

        It’s very logical what he did.

      2. Is he willing to drive like this for the rest of the season – 11 races including this one – to maybe save one penalty. That’s not the Lewis i want to see racing.
        He can easily take new engines at Monza, Spa and Mexico and minimize the damage, and get racing for the rest of the season.

    3. Pretty dull and professional with no one having a stand-out “wow you did amazing!” performance. In fact there were a lot of errors over the weekend, from most of the field! For me D.o.t.W is either Fernando or Vettel.

      I’ll give it to Alonso for maximising the realistic performance his car could give on Saturday and Sunday.

      1. Or Ricciardo.

        But still Alonso overall.;)

      2. Alonso’s spin on Saturday probably kept Roseberg on the first row. How much more interesting would the race have with his Merc bracketed by Red Bulls?

        No DOTW for Alsono please

    4. Kimi 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.

      1. 100% agree. Great first stint giving him 40 laps to use 2 new sets of SS tyres.
        Sold Verstappen a dummy making him make 2 moves in the braking area.
        As you say team mistake meant Kimi was first to finish Q2 and was a sitting duck on a drying track. Ferrari seem to get this wrong quite often.
        Both Ferraris were off the pace Friday so they had most ground to make up over the weekend.
        Kimi is looking racey again, I think he’s getting his head back in the game. He probably knows next season could well be his last in F1 and I’m sure he’d rather go out on a high than a damp squib. The next season and a half could really define how we remember him as a driver.

        1. His head is in the game when the car is good so promising for Ferrari but their track side operations is shocking. Last year they were good if they had that form this year with this car they could of had 3 or 4 wins instead stuck behind slower Red Bulls in the race although 1 Red Bull seems to be okay weaving to defend a position. Merc is out of the equation they are simply the best and untouchable if they have no issues.

        2. Raikkonen has shown again he is no real match for Verstappen if it comes down to attacking and defending. In Spain he looked like a dilettante and now again he tried everything and simply could not pass him.
          Of course he complained a lot during and after the race about the way Verstappen defended, it’s all he got left, because again he looked like a dilettante, that must be quite frustrating at his age.
          Old Grandma Vettel moaned and groaned again during the race about everything ( blue flags, please, please) that wasn’t going his way and of course Granny defended the steer of his teammate in the aftermath.
          Quite a shame for Ferrari to admit they have to use every trick in the book to beat Red Bull. Every time the stewards decided in their favour in the past you never heard them complain about the “disputable ordeal ” of the stewards, but now they decided against their wishes and they cried like babies. Pathetic.

          1. Kimi drove acceptable, but got stuck behind Verstappen and didn’t really try any overtake. He was 14th in quali, so can’t be dotw.

            Voted for Ricciardo. Solid performance all weekend.

            1. Wth??? Didn’t really try to overtake?? What race were you watching? :DD He tried to overtake so bad that Max had to break the rules by changing racing lines twice (or maybe even three times). And the quali was a team mistake, not Kimi’s, the team admitted that. And Max couldn’t overtake Kimi earlier in the race ;)

              Anyways, Kimi dotw for me, easily. Without Kimi, the race would have been a megasnoozefest.

    5. Hamilton. Would be on pole had Alonso not spun out, great start and controlled everything.

      1. As a Kimi fan, I really wanted to give him my vote, but I agree with you. Hamilton drove flawlessly this weekend especially when traffic would push him back within several tenths and then he’d immediately open up ≈1.5 second gap.

      2. I agree – its Hamilton. He made the race more exciting by racing a measured race. Could he have raced harder and left everyone way behind. I think he could have but realized that he has not got the luxury of taking new parts without being penalized so raced well within his limits and made the race a little bit more exciting as there was always the possibility that Roseberg could have caught and passed him. He made it more suspenseful by not disappearing into the distance

    6. Alonso was good, but the McLaren seemed faster than the Toro Rosso, so the performance of Sainz in both qualifying and the race seemed more impressive to me. Hamilton was good, but not spectacular, and made one mistake which could easily have been very expensive. For me it is between Sainz and Ricciardo, they had the best performance differential with their respective teammates. I voted Sainz because I thought he was more likely to be overlooked, but in all fairness it was not very fair to Ricciardo.

    7. It has to be Carlos 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. Raikkonen had a good race but had an awful qualifying. Absolutely nobody else except for Ricciardo and Nasr who had a good qualifying particularly stood out.

      1. Quali for Raikkonen was a team error at that point in time when he took the flag he was P1. Could do no more. He looked better than Vettel in practice and for me was better in the race. 14th to 6th on this track means I give it to him (opinion of course). McLaren times good all weekend but come the race Ferrari have nothing to worry about. Merc = LMP1, Ferrari + Red Bull = LMP2, McLaren et al = GTE PRO.

        1. Exactly. Driver wise he did most of anyone. And that is a rarity for Kimi. Pleasure to see.

      2. Carlos Sainz is in this difficult situation. Finishing eight in a car capable of doing so if cards fall the right way is not going to bring attention to you. Yet I believe he drove very well and deserves DOTW. Exacerbated by how easilyhe is outshining Kvyat

    8. Kimi easily – Caught up to Verstappen, Vettel, Ricciardo starting 14th on the grid which was due to a mistake from Ferrari.

    9. Lost pole under slightly controversial circumstances but seemed obviously faster, nailed the start needed to get the lead and hold of the charge of two Red Bulls, then just kept the measure of Rosberg the entire race with some really high stakes on the line, it was subtle, but still the drive of a champion. Hamilton.

    10. Driver of the race easily goes to Raikkonen but driver of the weekend has to be Alonso, best of the rest all weekend 10/10 for consistency:

      FP1: P7
      FP2: P7
      FP3: P7
      QUALI: P7
      RACE: P7

      1. There was no one to compare him with though since Button retired and that Mclaren probably deserved to be P7.

        1. WillOfTheSupremo
          24th July 2016, 22:09

          Didn’t knew we had come to a point the McLaren’s considered the 4th fastest car of the field, even on narrow tracks.

      2. yeah..its Fernando for me too…got the absolute maximum out of the car over the whole weekend.

        Kimi second.

      3. The universive would have collapsed had Bo77as done this $:)

    11. I’ll vote Kimi, he did most to liven up the race… By far. Also made the most places.

      Lewis did well to win the race, but was not impressive… Or let me correct myself, entertaining in the way he did it. More a Prost than a Senna.

      Kimi though was super fun, dicing with Max for amazing racing action. Gotta love that.

      Maybe he would even get an overtake done without max doing his double move defending…

    12. A shame Sainz didn’t appear more on the screens. Voted for him.

      I am sure driver of the day will go to Kimi, but F1 Fanatic is the one doing it right, driver of weekend…

      Ham, Ric, Vet, Kimi and Alonso also had a good race

    13. Does someone have any doubt? Fernando Alonso did the best his car could. In qualifying, when the track was still wet, he was in front OF ALL everytime he finished a lap. It remined me of 2006. A shame that a dry track defines the grid’s order depending on the car capabilities instead of the driver’s one. Raikkonen and Sainz were also superb.

    14. Sainz stands out.

    15. I went for Kimi. I didn’t see quali but from what I heard the team made a strategic error which explains the bad starting grad. Kimi’s race pace was out of this world. Utterly dominated the whole grid.

    16. WillOfTheSupremo
      24th July 2016, 22:07

      Again not Alonso?! Not sure what else the man has to do to get DotW, he was best of the rest behind Merc/RBR/Ferrari all weekend long!

      Sure, he *may* have left a position on Quali, arguably he could land a 3rd Row start, but when it mattered, on race day, he duly delivered.

      Fred for me ;-)

      1. Good race, yes, but when you spin you automatically lose any chance getting driver of the weekend. Especially when it affects those that can actually keep their car on the tarmac.

    17. ColdFly F1 (@)
      24th July 2016, 22:09

      Tough one – for me it could be any of the top 8 starters/finishers.
      Hamilton because he showed that he can have a good start as well; so important especially when it counts;
      Rosberg, pole sitter and never let Hamilton out of his sight; almost impossible to overtake.
      Ricciardo, relieved after finally stringing it together; a shame Mercedes was a bit too strong this year.
      Vettel, back from wherever he was, and great how he caught up with Ricciardo
      Verstappen, 15 laps of defending against a chasing Kimi on SS; al legal according to the rece director/stewards.
      Kimi, great from 14th to 6th and having the speed to go further; if only you could overtake in Hungary.
      Alonso, some real rewards for 18months of hard work; a podium is next.
      Sainz, always there; he deserves a better car (where was Kvyat?)

    18. Hamilton, of course. Good also Vettel, Ricciardo, Sainz, Raikkonen.

      1. You forgot to mention Alonso @jorge-lardone. How surprising it is…

    19. Lewis Hamilton, was “betrayed” by the FIA, made a small mistake in FP2 but controlled the pace when it mattered, a race à la Prost like Martin Brundle mentioned, most importantly he had the guts to rightly question the stewards decision.

    20. Lewis, of course. The race was over after the first lap, but it’s nice to know the good guy can still win it.

    21. Tough one. The contenders for me are Hamilton, Ricciardo, Raikkonen in the race, Alonso and Sainz. In the end, I will give it to Ricciardo as he did got the most out of his car.

    22. Hamilton. Made up the place he needed in order to win the race, controlled it beautifully from then on. No drama, just calm, measured driving.

    23. I don’t know about DoTW but Crying Baby of Weekend has got to go to Button with Raikkonnen a close second.

      1. You have no idea what you are talking about do you! Button had every right to complain about his penalty as it was one of the worst penalties that I have ever seen. If you’re looking for cry babies then you should add Vettel to that list. He’s constantly swearing and shouting on team radio every race.

        1. Could not agree more.

        2. @ultimateuzair button is always whining about something this weekend was just another example. And to top it off he has got to be among the top 5 least talented world champions ever. Boy can’t wait until he’s gone next year through I suspect he might get a job with his buddies in the British press so we might have to continue to put that with it for a while longer.

          1. @pmccarthy_is_a_legend Yep. You have no idea what you’re talking about. EVERY driver cries. Hamilton does it, Vettel does it, Alonso does it, Rosberg does it, Button does it, Schumacher did it, Senna did it, EVERYONE. And you would probably do the same so stop being hypocritical. And so would I if I was given such a pathetic penalty. And anyone who wins a world championship, with the exception of Jacques Villeneuve, is talented, so you should think before making hypocritical statements.

            1. ‘anyone who wins a world championship, with the exception of Jacques Villeneuve, is talented, so you should think before making hypocritical statements.’

              LOL its pathetic how you managed to be both contradictory AND hypocritical in the same sentence.
              @ultimateuzair

      2. I voted for Button for telling it like it is.

    24. I voted for Hamilton. Kimi did a great race and Max, Fernando and Carlos Sainz made a very good one, too. But long time since I saw someone doing that type of race management, slowing the pace trying to get Rosberg captured by Ricciardo.

    25. Honestly I’m at a loss. Hamilton was good in the race but binned it on Friday. Raikkonen hit a car today and wasn’t there on Saturday. No one really outperformed machinery or expectations. I might have to give to Sainz. He finished behind his start, but he started above his weight class and lost out to a Ferrari. He also once again embarrassed the once highly touted Kvyat.

    26. Kimi had the pace to be 3rd had he not spent the last 20 laps behind Max.

      1. Max kind of pulled the Ice curtain of Kimi – after the front wing incident, Max only needed to move his car half a cars width to the side and then Kimi backed of and tried on the other side. If Kimi had passed Max I would have voted for Kimi. As it is, I don’t know really, but I really like the fact that overtaking was difficult – it made for long duels, instead of DRS driveby circus.

    27. Hamilton, no question. Loses pole purely on bad luck, retakes first on start, then plays with his teammate all through the race.

    28. 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.

    29. None of the Hamilton voters mentioned him outbraking himself and nearly losing the lead ? This could easily have been a disaster of Palmerish proportions. The Raikkonen case is more contentious, one could argue that the contact was partly Verstappen’s fault. I still feel he should have gotten by even against Verstappen’s dirty defending if he had kept his car in one piece, but it was a good race by him nevertheless.

    30. Alonso, without a doubt. The only standout performance this weekend.

    31. Arnoud van Houwelingen
      25th July 2016, 9:43

      Kimi maybe if it was driver of the day .. good strategy starting with softs long stint and then ultra aggressive with 2x SuperSofts. But he can’t be driver of the weekend because of his poor qualifying. He should have been top 6.

    32. Arnoud van Houwelingen
      25th July 2016, 9:43

      So Alonso i think …

    33. Tough choice!

      GUT and PAL had really good races, but threw it away with silly actions.

      I´m going with Kimi, because the qualifying result was not really his fault in my opinion.
      And his race was stunning, especially his performance on the soft tyres.

      Honorable mention for ALO!

    34. I’ll never give a “driver of the weekend” vote to any F1 pilot driving an absolutely dominant car, like Mercedes is for the last 3 seasons. It’s 41 wins out of 48 races… Something never seen before in the sport.

      I’d give my vote to either Raikkonen or Alonso.

    35. In a weekend when nobody did a really great job (the Mercedes drivers did what their car required of them, the Red Bull duo too, Vettel was absolutely invisible and Kimi did what he could to minimize the bad job he did on Saturday), I’d give my vote to Nasr, essentially for what he did on the wet – when the track dried, his Sauber wasn’t a match for anything out there.

    36. Lewis deserved it with his dominating performance.
      As a Mclaren fan I voted Alonso as we don’t have many occasions to celebrate for the team.
      Honorable mention to Palmer who put a good performance this week-end. The other guys finished more or less where they were expecting to be.

    37. Fair results, 37%, Kimey, 22% Lewiz… Lewis did just enough to win . And Kimi more thn enough to win DotW.

    38. Nobody really stood out in this race. As a winner Hamilton is my dotw. Under the current rules he is right to drive defensively if possible is good racing (however utterly irritating for us viewers).
      Other contenders:
      Ric: did what he had to do with the car he has.
      Vet: I used to like this guy, but he really has to stop moaning about other drivers. Above that: he said himself his car was faster than the Red Bull. Finishing behind one is quite a poor performance in that case.
      Surprised to see Raikkonen high in the ranking. Of course he made up nicely for his failure in qualifying, but failing to overtake Verstappen for the third time is hardly outstanding.

    39. I don’t think there were really any standout performances this weekend, from the leaders at least, my choice for driver of the weekend was between Sainz and Alonso.

      Both had good qualifying and a good race, in the end I decided to vote for Sainz, It was a tight decision and it may have been influenced by the fact that Sainz has been impressive quite a few weekends this season but has never been my driver of the weekend yet.

    40. Sainz. Feel sad he’s only got 6% at the moment. If Kimi wins this it will be crazy considering the qualifying performance. This is driver of the *weekend*.

    41. Kimi deserves this, I think, his performance was very good.

    42. If it was the driver of the race I’d give it maybe to KR. However it’s the driver of the weekend so I give it to Dan Ricciardo. A perfect performance. Could not have done more.

      Vettel and Hamilton close behind in the ratings together with Alonso, Sainz, Bottas and Nasr

    43. Keith, could we have an additional choice on the list of drivers – “Undecided” or “None of the Above” – for races like these where no one seemed to be particularly outstanding, but where we would still like to register our participation.
      My reasoning is this; after a really, really dull race weekend where no driver stood out, there could be the situation where only one F1Fanatic visitor could be bothered to vote for DOTW and the driver that received the only vote would be recorded as receiving 100% of all the votes cast. In retrospect, it would appear that he obviously put in a fantastic performance, which would be completely incorrect.
      If we had a “None of the Above” slot, the poll would allow a more representative result with a particular receiving perhaps 1% of the vote and 99% of respondents hitting the ‘boring’ button. We’d still have the same DOTW, but his ‘winning margin’ would be seen as only 1% and not 100%.

      1. Bother. First sentence of last paragraph; should be ‘particular DRIVER receiving . . .’

    44. There’s a guy called Carlos Sainz Jr in this F1 field, he keeps impressing me week-in week-out, but few notice him.

    45. What a job Sainz is doing this year. Wonder how he would have stacked up against Verstappen.

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