Weekend round-up: F1, Daruvala win, Gill, Maini

Lewis Hamilton converted pole to victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix to extend his lead over title rival Sebastian Vettel.

While Hamilton cruised at the front of the field, Vettel spent the second half of the race on the gearbox of Valtteri Bottas.

After biding his time, Vettel went around the outside of Bottas at turn 1 to gain the inside line into turn 2. But the German wasn’t fully ahead going into the second corner and the two touched, with Bottas suffering front wing damage that left him dropping down the order.

The Finn was then involved in a crash with Daniel Ricciardo at turn 1 for which he was penalised with a 10-second penalty, but still got to retain fifth place.

Both Force Indias were eliminated in Q1 during a tricky wet qualifying session and simply lacked the pace to charge up the field in the race, Esteban Ocon finishing 13th and Sergio Perez ending up right behind him in 14th.

Jehan Daruvala made a sluggish start from pole position in the first European F3 race of the Belgian round, but was back up to second place in a matter of corners.

After an early safety car was retreated, Daruvala was immediately on the move, passing Alex Palou at Les Combes to take the lead and eventually win the race.

He added a podium finish to victory in Race 2, but struggled for reasons out of his control in the final event of the weekend.

Arjun Maini missed out on points in the Hungarian Formula 2 round despite qualifying his car eighth on the grid.

Maini initially struggled for pace in wet conditions that prevailed in the feature race, while thermal tyre degradation was responsible for a late drop in speed during the sprint event.

He finished the weekend’s two races in 12th and 14th positions.

Gaurav Gill and MRF finished 12th on their second World Rally Championship-2 appearance in Finland.

Apart from a technical issue on Friday, Gill had a smooth outing as he tested the latest version of MRF tyres in the fastest event on the WRC map.

Sanjay Takale rounded-off his debut World Rally Championship outing with a 14th place result in the WRC-3 class in Rally Finland.

The Pune-based driver, who has past experience of competing in Asia-Pacific Rally Championship and the European Rally Championship, was driving a Baltic Motorsports Promotion-prepared Ford Fiesta R2 alongside British navigator Darren Garrod.