The 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 ING Magyar Nagydíj 2009) was a Formula One motor race held on 26 July 2009 at the Hungaroring in Mogyoród, north of Budapest, Hungary. It was the tenth race of the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship. The 70-lap race was won by world champion Lewis Hamilton for McLaren-Mercedes, after starting from fourth place on the grid. The world champion Kimi Räikkönen finished second for Ferrari, with Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber finishing third. Championship leader Jenson Button had a poor race to finish seventh, allowing Webber to reduce the points gap in the championship.
Hamilton's win was his first since the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix, which was also the last time he had appeared on the podium. The result also marked the first time that a car equipped with a regenerative brake system (KERS) had won a race. Räikkönen's second place was Ferrari's best result of the season so far, but his teammate Felipe Massa suffered a serious accident during the second part of the Saturday afternoon qualifying session which left him with a fractured skull. The race also saw the debut of World Series by Renault racer and 2008 British Formula Three champion Jaime Alguersuari, who became the youngest Formula One driver in the championship's 59-year history, at the age of 19 years and 125 days, and the first to be born in the 1990s.However, Alguersuari's record has been broken since Max Verstappen debuted in 2015. He replaced the fired Sébastien Bourdais at Scuderia Toro Rosso.
Background Heading into the weekend, Jenson Button led the Drivers' Championship on 68 points for Brawn GP, 21 points clear of Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel. Vettel's teammate Mark Webber, who signed a new one-year contract before the race weekend, was 1.5 points behind Vettel and an equal number ahead of Button's teammate Rubens Barrichello.
Brawn GP also held the lead in the Constructors' Championship, with a lead of 19.5 points from a resurgent Red Bull Racing, who were a further 48 points clear of Toyota. Toyota held an advantage of only 1.5 points over defending champions Scuderia Ferrari.
Webber won the previous race in Germany from pole position, to claim his first win at the 130th attempt. Despite an early drive-through penalty assessed for a dangerous manoeuvre to keep the Brawn GP car of Barrichello behind him at the start, the Australian driver had enough time in hand to rejoin out front and win by nearly ten seconds from Red Bull Racing teammate Vettel.
Felipe Massa was third, to earn his first podium of the 2009 season to date. Championship leader Button could only muster a fifth-place finish, after being overhauled by the one-stopping Williams of Nico Rosberg, who finished fourth having started fifteenth.
Prior to the race, the Hungarian Grand Prix had produced different winners for each of the last seven years, with Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren-Mercedes; 2008), Lewis Hamilton (McLaren–Mercedes; 2007), Button (Honda; 2006), Kimi Räikkönen (McLaren–Mercedes; 2005), Michael Schumacher (Ferrari; 2004), Fernando Alonso (Renault; 2003) and Barrichello (Ferrari; 2002) taking the chequered flag. The Hungaroring had also been the scene of the maiden victories of Button, Alonso and Kovalainen.
Much of the talk prior to the weekend was about the appointment of Jaime Alguersuari to replace Sébastien Bourdais at Scuderia Toro Rosso. Alguersuari did not have any circuit testing experience in a Formula One car, and had only undertaken straight-line aerodynamic tests the week before the Grand Prix, in Faenza. Felipe Massa felt that Alguersuari—who had 118 prior single-seater races under his belt, with 17 wins—was too young and inexperienced to be driving a contemporary Formula One car. Mark Webber and Jenson Button also expressed their fears about Alguersuari driving at the Hungaroring. However, Sebastian Vettel came to the support of the Spaniard, saying that he should take his time to build up speed.
Practice
Three practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held on Friday morning and the second on Friday afternoon. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 30 minutes with weather conditions dry throughout, the air temperature at , and the track temperature at . for session one. Session two saw the air temperature at , and the track temperature at . The third session was held on Saturday morning and lasted an hour, and was also dry throughout, with the air temperature at , and the track temperature at . McLaren were the pace-setters in both Friday practice sessions, with Kovalainen topping the first and Hamilton topping the second.
Apart from the upturn in McLaren's performance, the usual Friday pace-setters were also competitive, with Williams drivers Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima both setting times that were good enough for top five positions in both sessions. The Red Bull of Mark Webber was also in the top five in both sessions, as he continued his recent good form.
Brawn GP implemented their usual strategy of running with fuel during Friday practice sessions. In the first session, Jenson Button was tenth and Rubens Barrichello was thirteenth. In the second session, Barrichello improved to seventh place, while Button dropped back to thirteenth. That said, Button's lap time was only 0.727 seconds off the fastest time of Hamilton, in an extremely tight session.
Jarno Trulli was the top Toyota in both sessions, finishing up sixth and eighth, beating teammate Timo Glock, who was fourteenth and tenth. Renault had a mixed session, with Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr. struggling to get the ideal setup for the car. Alonso was seven tenths of a second off in both sessions, while Piquet improving to just a tenth and half behind his teammate. Massa and Räikkönen posted times good enough for P7 and P8 in the first session, but were adrift in the second session, with neither driver in the top ten, which left the Ferrari drivers disappointed with the lack of pace.
BMW Sauber were another team to struggle in practice, with times some six tenths of a second off the pace, which left both drivers unhappy with the setup. Nick Heidfeld's time in the second session was their best showing, ending up in ninth position. Force India outpaced Toro Rosso in both sessions, with both cars lapping within a second of the best times. Giancarlo Fisichella (16th and 17th) and Adrian Sutil (18th and 16th) were both confident that they could improve on those times on Saturday. Sébastien Buemi found himself doing much of the setup work for the Italian outfit, improving his lap time by eight tenths of a second, between sessions. Alguersuari produced a solid performance in both sessions, but still ranked last in both sessions. Each driver completed 82 laps over the two sessions.
McLaren again topped the times during the Saturday practice session with Hamilton posting the best time. Heidfeld was a surprise second for BMW Sauber, with Nico Rosberg in third. Kovalainen was fourth, ahead of the Toro Rosso of Buemi and the Toyota of Glock. Glock's session was far from trouble-free, as his Toyota developed a hydraulic leak during its first flying lap. He returned to the track just before the end of the session, to record the sixth best time. Only seven tenths of a second split Heidfeld in second from Barrichello's Brawn in thirteenth. At one point, Jaime Alguersuari was as high as second position, before falling down to 18th by the end. Both Force Indias lapped slower than the teenager, with Sutil also having an incident, misjudging turn eight and hit the barrier.
Qualifying
The qualifying session on Saturday afternoon was split into three parts. The first part ran for 20 minutes, and cars that finished the session 16th or lower were eliminated from qualifying. The second part of qualifying lasted 15 minutes and eliminated cars that finished in positions 11 to 15. The final part of qualifying determined the positions from first to tenth, and decided pole position. Cars which failed to make the final session could refuel before the race, so ran lighter in those sessions. Cars which competed in the final session of qualifying were not allowed to refuel before the race, and as such carried more fuel than in the previous sessions. Weather conditions for the session saw the air temperature at , and the track temperature at .
The first part of qualifying saw Rosberg top the times, with a lap of 1:20.793, towards the end of the session. Hamilton and Webber were the only other drivers to record laps in the 1:20s. Alguersuari, who was 19th with several minutes remaining, slowed out of turn 12 with a hydraulic failure that left him unable to return to the pits. He fell to 20th and last on the grid, after Sutil (who moved up to 18th) lapped quicker than he did. The two were joined on the sidelines by the BMW Saubers of Heidfeld and Robert Kubica, and the second Force India of Fisichella.
After a seven-minute break, the second part of the qualifying session got underway. With just a second covering the fifteen remaining drivers, many drivers set their quickest laps in the final few minutes of the session. As the session ended, the Ferrari of Massa, who was sixth at the time, was involved in a serious accident at turn four. Replays showed debris striking his Schuberth helmet, 1 inch above the left eye, when he was travelling at . The impact knocked him unconscious, with his car straying towards the grass verge on the inside of turn four. The onboard footage from his car showed that he had his feet on both the accelerator and the brake pedals. The Ferrari decelerated at a force of between 0.6 and 1.4g and impacted with the barrier at . After the car imbedded itself in the tyre barrier, the engine could be heard still revving on the limiter, indicating that Massa's foot was still pressing the accelerator and that he was thus unconscious. This accident came just six days after FIA Formula Two Championship driver Henry Surtees was fatally injured after being struck on the head by a wheel bouncing across the circuit at the Brands Hatch track in the United Kingdom, and provoked some discussion about the safety of open cockpit racing cars. The debris, a spring from the rear suspension damper (weighing around 800 grams), was suspected of having come from the car of Barrichello, who had reported that something had come loose minutes beforehand. Brawn confirmed the part had indeed come from Barrichello's car, and changed the same part on teammate Button's car ahead of the race. It was also subjected to an inspection during the third qualifying session, leaving Button with only one run for qualifying, due to the lengthy inspection.
Despite Massa's accident, some drivers improved their times towards the end of the session as they had passed the zone before the accident, meaning that Massa fell to eighth position. Button and Nakajima both progressed into the third part of qualifying, with their times set despite the yellow flag at turn four for Massa's accident. Barrichello's problem meant that he and the Brawn team missed out on the top ten shootout for the first time this season. He was joined on the sidelines by Buemi, Glock, Nelson Piquet Jr. and Trulli. Even though Massa's time was quick enough to progress to Q3, his crash ruled him out of any further participation in the session. He was slowly extricated from his damaged Ferrari, and taken to the infield medical centre, where he was stabilised before being airlifted to hospital. This meant that there were only nine drivers in the final part of qualifying, which was delayed by twenty minutes due to the lengthy amount of time taken to remove Massa, repair the tyre barrier and check the track for any further debris.