Finishing fifth today, maybe we actually did better than what should have been within our grasp, because Mercedes, Lotus and Red Bull were quicker than us, a fact we had already seen from Friday’s practice. This race ends what’s been a generally difficult month for us and, with Silverstone and Nurburgring, is part of a cycle where we were not up to par. However, looking at the points we have obtained, we haven’t lost out too much and today, Hamilton and Raikkonen helped us to keep the gap from growing too big to Vettel in the lead. Now, our aim is to work hard to arrive at Spa and Monza with a more competitive car. There are still nine races to go and the points available are more than enough. The team can do it and the potential is there, so I don’t see any reason why we can’t fight right to the end of the championship, as we have always done

Today’s race was difficult from start to finish, because right from the first lap, at turn 5, after making contact with Rosberg, I lost the left part of the front wing. At that time, stopping to change the nose would have lost valuable time, so we decided not to come in, but from then on, the balance of the car was never the same and I lost a lot in terms of performance, suffering a lot with understeer and oversteer and my tyres degraded more than they should have done. I definitely can’t be happy with eighth place, because both in the race and in qualifying, we lacked the pace to fight for the lead. For various reasons, this track doesn’t suit our car, but it’s precisely because things can change from track to track that we must absolutely stay focused now. From now on we will concentrate on the development and on the preparation of the second part of the championship, when I hope we can be more competitive

The result of this race is in line with our current potential: we knew this cycle of races would be difficult and that the fight for the podium at this track would be out of our reach. Car performance on both compounds did not give us any margin to attack, not even with a more aggressive strategy. For this reason, we preferred to defend our positions from attacks from those behind and from those caused by traffic, opting for a more conservative strategy. Both drivers did their utmost, especially Felipe, who from first lap onwards had to drive with a damaged front wing. Even if we have managed to limit the damage, now we need to make significant progress if we want to fight for the title. The next two races after the summer break take place on circuits that are very different to the Hungaroring and so we will work on various fronts in the hope of seeing our efforts rewarded as soon as possible

Going into this race weekend, we knew we would be struggling a bit. Today’s result cannot put a smile on our faces because at no point in the race were we competitive. After a promising start to the season, we are experiencing a drop in competitiveness. Now we need to stay calm and not give up, which is what we are used to doing, especially in the most difficult times. We must use the next few weeks to gather some ideas and act promptly. I expect the whole team to react strongly with the intention of improving the car to allow our drivers to express all their potential

What a great weekend! We really didn't expect this when we came here this weekend and I said last night that I would need a miracle to win today. Well, just maybe they do happen. The team called the strategy and the pit stops just right and then it was just about managing the gap. I had some racing to do out there, though, with Jenson and Mark and I think we had the pace on everyone today. The team has just done an exceptional job: we have worked so hard to understand these tyres and we got the balance spot on today. I am very hopeful this could be a real turning point for us as we coped with these high track temperatures. I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone at the team here and at our factories in Brackley and Brixworth. Team work achieved this result today and I really couldn't be happier.

Today was a great day for the team, for Lewis and a brilliant job by everyone here at the track and back at our factories. Unfortunately my weekend didn’t go quite so well and it’s a shame that we couldn’t have had a two-car finish today. I got a good start but then Felipe and I came together on the first lap which was unfortunate as I was in front and had left some space for him but his front wing hit my rear tyre. That cost me a lot of positions and it’s really difficult to make the places back up on this track. Then my day came to an early conclusion with the engine failure. However there are lots of positives for us to take as a team from this weekend and now I really look forward to the upcoming races as we know that we have a quick car and we made the new tyres work for us this weekend.

We went into this race not really knowing where we stood in terms of tyre performance and behaviour but as the race unfolded, it became clear that we were able to stay competitive with both cars and drivers. Lewis drove an absolutely perfect race and didn't put a foot wrong all afternoon. He was able to race aggressively and keep the tyres alive to make our strategy work. Nico was unfortunate to get tangled up with Massa on the first lap and then suffered an engine failure, which was a little worrying in the closing laps as we hadn't seen any signs of overheating. Overall, this has been a very encouraging weekend. In extremely hot conditions, we maintained our Saturday afternoon competitiveness on Sunday afternoon and it certainly feels like we have made a good step forward today. Now we need to get our heads down before the well-deserved two-week shutdown so that we arrive in Spa as well prepared as we possibly can.

What an outstanding drive from Lewis this afternoon - he got a clean getaway and then executed the race strategy perfectly, including some really strong and aggressive overtaking moves when he needed to. He did a great job, just like the team with six clean pit stops for our drivers and the right race strategy. Nico lost positions on the first lap tangling with Felipe and then was making up places when his engine failed near the end of the race. That gave us a nervous few closing laps but we were able to bring Lewis’ car home safely. We came into this weekend with a lot of discussion over how the new tyres would affect us. We did our homework in practice, found the right set-up and managed to take a good step forward this afternoon with how we managed the tyres in race conditions. It is only halfway through the season and our rivals have been consistently competitive while we have experienced some ups and downs in the first ten races. Our target for the second half of the year must be to consolidate our performance and deliver this kind of speed consistently. We are still the underdogs right now but we are on an upward trend and we will keep working hard. Thank you to everyone at our factories back in Brackley and Brixworth for their hard work and enjoy a well-deserved summer break. Congratulations as well to our customer sport team-mates who took victory for Mercedes-Benz in the Spa 24 Hours. It’s been a good day for the three-pointed star!

It was a good race and a good result for the team. The strategy worked well. We did two long stints on the tyres but they weren’t too bad and the car felt strong so it allowed us to make one less stop. In the last few laps the rears were a bit on edge, but apart from that it was ok. Sebastian [Vettel] got the run on me a couple of times but luckily it was in places that you can’t really overtake. The main positive is that we gained a few points to Seb in the Championship. For sure we could have maybe closed the gap a little more with a win, but anything we can get back will help. We’re only halfway through the season and it will be hard to catch up, but anything can still happen so we’ll keep fighting until the end.

For sure this is one that got away, but I’m very happy with my race and I honestly don’t think I could have done much more. Maybe the strategy didn’t quite work how we wanted, but the car felt really good and it was the traffic that cost us. Without this maybe there would never have been a drive-through penalty which for sure didn’t help. I haven’t seen the footage yet and I thought it was a good move, but unfortunately the stewards took a different view. I’ve no problem with the time-added for the incident with Jenson and I apologised to him afterwards. This could have been the one for me, but we will just have to wait a little bit longer and keep improving like we have been recently to make it happen.

Another good result for Kimi today. He drove very well and was backed up by a strong strategy to help him make the podium. Romain was very unfortunate in that we couldn’t quite jump Fernando [Alonso] in the pits which cost him a lot of time, plus the drive-through penalty cost him a far better result. He made a great move at a circuit where overtaking is difficult and he had no room to do anything else. For us the Stewards’ decision was harsh. The most important thing to take from the weekend has been the pace of the car; this circuit is a bit special, and I think there will be some circuits where we have to work a bit harder, but I’m confident we’ll be consistently fighting for podiums at every race weekend in the second half of the season. Red Bull are a long way ahead, but we’ve shown today that they can be beaten so we want to keep pushing them all the way.

It was a great race today from Kimi – as always. We started the race intending a three-stop strategy, but as the race played out it became clear that a two-stop would give us better possibilities so we switched over to that strategy. Kimi drove superbly to look after his tyres but deliver exactly the pace we needed at the appropriate time. He was rewarded by returning to second in the Drivers’ Championship. I feel really sorry for Romain for what appears to be a very harsh penalty for a fantastic overtaking move on Felipe Massa. Yes, he ran off the track, but he had nowhere else to go. It certainly seemed like good racing to me; were it not for the drive-through penalty, we would have had two cars on the podium again.

It was a very tough race today and we were struggling with the balance the whole time and having to work so hard to preserve the rear tyres. All 70 laps were a bit of a battle to be honest. On the positive side we remained reliable in a race which is very demanding for the cars, bringing two cars home once again. My thanks to the Team for a good job, especially today with the pitstops and high temperatures. They did their usual strong performance. Now we head into the summer break and it is a time to both rest but also think about what we can do when we come back for the second half of the season. It is so important that we hold our ground to our competitors in order to achieve our objectives this year.

A really tough day today for the whole team and easily the hardest race of my career. The track is challenging enough at the best of times, with little or no respite the whole lap - and there are 70 of them. Compounding things further for us was a real balance shift on the Medium tyres, which we started the race on, and this eased only for a short while when we ran on the Soft tyre for the second stint. This made it really difficult to drive the car for most of the race and at the same time try to manage the tyre degradation, so it really took every ounce of concentration and energy. These problems lost us a lot of time and this put us into blue flags much sooner and for a much longer period of time, which then causes you to lose even more time and have to fight to make up what we could when we were in free air. With that in mind, I am pleased with my relative race pace under the circumstances. Now, in common with the rest of the pit lane, a well-deserved summer break is due for the Team so we can come back fighting in the second half of the season.

Given the pace deficit we saw yesterday in qualifying it was always going to be tough to make progress today. We knew we had to do something different on strategy but we didn’t expect to drop back as far as we did on the Medium tyre at the start of the race. The stints we were able to achieve today weren’t quite enough to complete our planned two-stop race and so in the end we had to move to a three-stop race, which doesn’t help the gaps shown on the timing sheet at the end. Overall a tough weekend and one we will want to move on from quickly. The next series of races coming up after the break will play to more of the strengths of our car and we will be pushing to ensure we learn every lesson we can from this race to come back from the break with renewed vigour. Finally I would like to thank the race team for their hard work in the heat today, we reacted well to the situations seen on track and the boys executed good pit stops, which was the most we could do.

That was a fun race – although I seemed to be a target for other cars! Sebastian [Vettel] tried many times to get past me, and clipped my rear wheel into Turn Two – he may have damaged his wing, but I was lucky not to puncture. With Romain [Grosjean], I don’t know what he thought – unless I took to the grass, it was inevitable we were going to touch! I don’t think he was thinking at that point. I ran almost half the race on the Prime tyre, which was the longest of anybody; it’s good to show we can do that. Our middle-stint pace on the Option was also very good, and I had a blinding first lap, jumping from 13th to eighth. We beat a Ferrari fair and square, and we’d also have beaten a Mercedes if Nico [Rosberg] hadn’t stopped – we can take a lot of positives away from here. Seventh position might not look too exciting – particularly after we fought for fifth at the last race – but we’ve done a good job this weekend and taken a step forward – and that’s a nice little boost to send everyone off into the summer break.

We really needed the starting tyre in the best possible condition to make a two-stopper work properly. After qualifying yesterday, I think we were in a good position to score some good points, but we were affected by the run on the used Prime from qualifying. So, unfortunately, I think we lost out a little too much in the first stint; I struggled with the rear of the car, had to pit earlier than planned, and then ran into traffic and lost more time, so it’s a bit of a shame. Still, it’s a positive to get both cars into the points again. I think we can feel satisfied with the job we’ve done over the last couple of races – a result like this is encouraging for everybody in the team, and it’s a nice present with which to send us into the August break.

Jenson controlled his pace brilliantly throughout today’s race, optimising a two-stop strategy to score six valuable world championship points here in Budapest. Moreover, he was quick in his middle stint, on Options, which underlined the decent race pace that MP4-28 was able to produce on this tricky and idiosyncratic racetrack. Checo was very unlucky to get boxed in at the start, losing places as a result, but thereafter he did a very solid and professional job, hanging on in there to bag two useful world championship points also. Moreover, both Jenson and Checo deserve plaudits for their great professionalism here today, driving very cleanly in challenging circumstances made even trickier by the proximity of drivers on three-stop strategies who were obviously able and willing to push harder than they were. Now, as we go into the mid-season break, I want to say two things: first, that it goes without saying that we’ll continue to do our utmost to score as many points as we can in the second half of the season, and, second, that everyone at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes richly deserves a good holiday after having worked spectacularly hard so far this year. Well done, guys. Last but not least, I want to say ‘congrats’ to our old friend Lewis [Hamilton], who drove very well indeed to score his maiden victory for Mercedes-Benz AMG F1 here today.

I started on the options on a two-stop strategy and by the end of lap one I was just behind Bottas with my teammate ahead of him. We’d originally planned to stop around lap 10 but the soft tyres were holding up well so we extended the first stint to lap 13 so I could stay out, even though we knew it would be challenging with the track conditions today! After my first stop I came back out behind Bianchi and Chilton but passed them and started to make up time to Giedo who was then in 18th. Even though the track conditions were obviously very hot the first set of mediums was performing well and they held up for the distance we’d targeted for stop two on lap 38, by which point I was 18th. With that second stop successfully completed I had to make the tyres last for the rest of the race, 32 laps in total, so I managed them as best I could and there wasn’t really anything more I could do today.

I’m really pleased with today’s race, for me that was the best race of the year and it’s great to put in a performance like that before we head off for the August break. I think it shows that the plan we’d set for this season, about learning and improving race by race, is working as I was right on the pace we’d targeted until about six laps to go when the tyres were pretty much gone. For most of the season my starts have been good and it was the same here. I was ahead of Bottas by the end of lap one and keeping pace with the pack until my first stop, going onto primes, on lap eight. The car felt good at that point and the tyre management plan was going pretty well. I was making up time to the Williams ahead when we stopped for the second time on lap 28 and I was 19th when I came back out, well clear of both our nearest rivals. The goal today was to beat the cars we’ve been racing all year, so the second half of the race was really about consolidating the position we were in past the half-way point. Obviously the blue flags don’t help us as we’re having to race with one eye ahead and one behind, but we have to deal with them both on track and with the strategy, and I think the plan we had today was just about right. After the third stop I was about five seconds ahead of my teammate and knew I had to make the last set of mediums last until the flag, about 26 laps. I think the fact I was able to do that shows how my tyre management is improving, and I think the mix of a good strategy and a decent performance in the car combined to make this best day in F1 for me so far.

The extremely high temperatures meant that everything on the cars, including the tyres, was put through a tough test but nevertheless both compounds performed extremely well. We saw a wide variety of strategies, which relied on close racing and some brilliant overtaking manoeuvres. Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes used their tyres perfectly, in some of the hottest conditions of the year so far, to take a deserved win from pole position. A well-thought tyre strategy certainly contributed to his win when he gained track position at the beginning of the race and then pitted before his direct rivals, controlling the pace of the race. Congratulations also to Kimi Raikkonen and Lotus, who showed what is possible with a two-stop strategy and optimal tyre management.

I would have loved the race to have been a bit longer, as it was fun with Kimi at the end. It’s hard to pass on this track, I got close but I wasn’t in the prime overtaking spot at that point; I was trying to set something up for the next corners, but it didn’t work. The key issue in the race was when I got stuck behind Jenson, there’s no one to blame for that, I lost more time than expected on the way into the first stop and we came out just behind him. I couldn’t get past; I tried to force it and damaged my front wing, which was a mistake from my side. I was maybe trying to urge a bit too much. It was close with Kimi and nice to be on the podium again today. Congratulations to Lewis, he did a good job today.

I think we had the right strategy. We knew there was a lot of pressure on getting a good first lap and I got some clear air, which worked well. The start was okay and the first sector was very good, I was able to put a bit of pressure on Kimi and then we just settled in. I had a pretty tricky car for the first three or four laps, as I knew the option tyres were quite grippy and after that we just got our heads down. I don’t think we could have got much more than that result today. The strategy was pretty solid and you have to pace the option tyres until the end.

A very hot and tough afternoon. Probably the decisive moment in Sebastian’s race was after the first stop when he emerged behind Jenson Button. We weren’t able to get past quickly and sustained a bit of wing damage. That then effectively released Lewis and put us back into the realms of fighting with Kimi on a two stop. However, despite the damage, Sebastian was able to maintain a very strong pace and pushed all the way to the flag. Mark’s recovery from tenth was excellent today, a very strong first stint put him back into contention and to recover from tenth on the grid to fourth was a very good performance. So heading into the summer break, we’ve extended our lead in the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships and everyone now deserves a well-earned rest to recharge their batteries for when we come back at the end of August.