Sebastian Vettel: “Excellent pace”

As soon as the finish line was crossed in Budapest, Sebastian Vettel immediately dedicated its second victory of the season to the Frenchman Jules Bianchi, who died on Friday July 17, and to whom a new tribute had been paid before the start of the race. “Jules, this victory is for you. » indicated on his radio and in French the quadruple world champion.

The German partly built this success thanks to a perfect takeoff, overtaking both Mercedes W06 Hybrid Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, taking his teammate Kimi Räikkönen in his wake. “Our race was very good from the start, we had a great start and after that we benefited with an excellent rhythm and we were able to control the race.

Of course, the safety car at the end clearly didn't help us, but we still managed to stay at the front and win the Grand Prix. Today we proved that the pace we showed had nothing to do with luck.”

The former Red Bull driver, who was accompanied by the current drivers of Milton Keynes Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo on the podium, however regretted the abandonment of his teammate Räikkönen. “It looked promising after the start. Kimi performed a very nice maneuver. He did a great job overtaking the Mercedes, but then he lost the MGU-K and had to retire.

It's a shame because I think we could have achieved a very good result, and who knows a double. » Sebastian Vettel is now 21 points behind Nico Rosberg, second in the Drivers' championship before the Spa meeting in Belgium at the end of August.

Find the full report of the Hungarian Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondents in Budapest, in issue 2022 of AUTOhebdo, available from tomorrow evening in digital version, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.