The Renault RS27 engine powered Kimi Räikkönen to second place in today’s scorching hot Hungarian Grand Prix. A fantastic performance and aggressive two-stop strategy helped the Finn climb from sixth on the grid to finish 1.5 seconds ahead of Sebastian Vettel, who completed the podium.
Mark Webber, who started 10th, produced a similarly impressive comeback drive to cross the line in 4th place, earning himself and the Infiniti Red Bull Racing-Renault team more valuable points for the World Championship.
Despite an excellent start to the race, Romain Grosjean could only finish in 6th place after receiving a drive-through penalty for exceeding track limits when overtaking Felipe Massa.
Pastor Maldonado achieved his best result of the season thus far by finishing in 10th place and scoring Williams F1 Team-Renault’s first championship point of the campaign. Team-mate Valtteri Bottas was less lucky though, the Finn retiring on lap 45 with hydraulics failure.
Both Caterham F1 Team-Renault drivers saw the finish, with Giedo van der Garde and Charles Pic coming home 14th and 15th respectively.
Infiniti Red Bull Racing now leads the World Championship by 69 points from Mercedes, with Ferrari third ahead of Lotus F1 Team. Vettel meanwhile moves on to 172 points in the Drivers’ standings, increasing his lead over Räikkönen (134) and Alonso (133).
Rémi Taffin, Renault Sport F1 head of track operations
The engines were pushed hard during the Hungarian Grand Prix due to the very high temperatures. But we rose to the challenge and achieved exemplary reliability that saw five Renault engines finish in the top ten.
We are at the season’s halfway mark and happy to see our teams still making significant progress. Infiniti Red Bull Racing-Renault and Sebastian Vettel have increased their leads in the World Championships, Kimi Räikkönen moved back ahead of Fernando Alonso in the Drivers’ Championship and Williams F1 Team-Renault scored its first point today.
Congratulations for the start of the season and now let’s enjoy the summer break, fully relax and return at the top of our game as the competition is very close, meaning we’ll need engines that are reliable and working well in order to return even stronger at Spa.