You must be wondering if the stars really are in alignment for Mark this year. He has driven superbly in each of his four wins and deserved all of them, but two have come when Sebastian Vettel has had a cracked chassis, one when Vettel fluffed his start and got a puncture, and this one when Vettel got a self-inflicted drive-through penalty. Over the last few races, Vettel has once again established a raw speed advantage over the Australian, but in general Webber remains the more reliable on race day.

This was also what happened last year. After Hungary, Webber was up to 2nd in the title race and was Jenson Button’s closest challenger thanks to several Vettel errors, only to have five non-scoring races after the summer break which saw Sebastian regain the Red Bull ascendancy. It makes for an intriguing question with seven races to go: is the fact that Vettel is faster but slips up on Sundays an aberration that will soon put itself right, or in fact is this the trend to expect which will see Webber maintain a points edge?

Vettel ought to have won comfortably in Budapest, even with the safety car intervention. There was no way Webber would have been able to build enough of a gap to steal the win. He blames the gap he left to Webber on the restart on the fact that his radio failed and he did not know the safety car was coming in. But what about watching the safety car lights? I have no sympathy for drivers who are now so mothered by their teams that they don’t know the rules and they don’t have enough independent racecraft or alertness.

In the BBC commentary, Martin Brundle kept musing why Webber wasn’t pitted during the safety car period, as if Red Bull had ended up making Mark’s job to get past Alonso all the more difficult. For once this was a tactical gaffe by the usually on-the-ball pundit. Instead, the decision to keep Mark out was a moment of tactical genius by the Red Bull pit wall, which we have seen far too little of this season. If Mark had been brought in, he may have had to queue if Vettel’s stop was delayed.

More to the point, even if Mark did not have to queue, the chances of jumping Alonso purely on pit work was most unlikely, and so the Australian would have been resigned to follow in the Ferrari’s wheel tracks for the rest of the afternoon. Instead, by keeping him out, it gave him the chance to use Red Bull’s massive pace advantage to build a gap and pass Alonso despite having to make a green flag stop. And how Webber made use of that opportunity, thanks to the Bridgestone softs once again lasting so long.

The Australian’s series of blistering laps as he eased the gap out to over 20 seconds was reminiscent of Schumacher in his pomp in that famous Hungarian GP of 1998, although Michael didn’t have the car advantage that Mark enjoyed in this instance. With 20 points separating the top five now (the equivalent of 8 points last year), that is virtually nothing. After the break, the championship has now come down to a seven-race shoot-out between five drivers. We haven’t seen anything like it since the early 1980s at least.

Many suspect that the huge speed advantage which Red Bull and to some extent Ferrari have are due to their flexible front wings. With more stringent tests being implemented from Spa onwards, and Spa and Monza likely to bring McLaren back into the game at any rate, all three teams are still well in the hunt. In Hungary, Ferrari confirmed their place in the current hierarchy. Alonso was the only one other than the Red Bulls to break into the 1min 19s in qualifying, and he staved off Vettel in the race to claim a steady 2nd.

Felipe Massa returned to the scene of his life-threatening accident last year, but he was several tenths slower than Alonso when it mattered in Q2 and Q3, and also in the race. The window of opportunity was there for him to put in a few banzai laps such that Vettel would have come out from his drive-through penalty behind both Ferraris, but the Brazilian could not take the chance, and thereafter applied no pressure to Sebastian. Like it or not, that rather justified Ferrari’s unpopular position-swap in Germany.

In the end though, Red Bull and Ferrari were the only teams to leave the Hungaroring smiling as disasters of various kinds befell their rivals in both championships. McLaren ceded the lead in both in the worst possible manner. The MP4/25 wasn’t that slow; when maximised in the hands of Hamilton, who was his usual brilliant self in qualifying, it was on par or maybe even slightly ahead of the Renault and the Mercedes. Button missed the Q2 cut, but had he found another 0.02s he would have made it one spot behind Lewis.

Hamilton beat Massa out of the pits and would have finished 4th but for his gearbox failure, making it only his second non-score of the season after Spain. Button made a good start but got hung out to dry at the first corner and dropped to 15th, yet that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It meant that he could pit just as the safety car was deployed, whilst all those ahead of him had to complete a lap before coming in. It placed him between the two Saubers where he stayed for the rest of the race.

The point is, though, that what McLaren have done particularly well this year is to keep racking up the points even when they have not had the fastest car in the field. Before Hungary, the worst they had done was pick up ten points each in Spain and Monaco. Generally, they have maximised their points score whereas Red Bull and Ferrari have thrown points away. Red Bull in particular would have been hoping for a round where McLaren slipped up, and that is exactly what has occurred.

Massa’s private battle for sixth in the drivers’ standings also had an unexpected twist when both his opponents, Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica, suffered dramas in the pits. The error of the Mercedes pit crew in letting Nico out when his right rear wheel was not properly attached, and of the Renault lollipop man in letting Kubica out of the pits, were both bad ones, but at least somewhat understandable in the hurly-burly of everyone piling into the pits under the safety car.

The Renault error was particularly poor, not necessarily because the lollipop man failed to recognise that Adrian Sutil was coming in rather than leaving his stop. Even though the Force India crew was next door, one can accept that that detail may have been lost in the thousand-and-one things a lollipop man has to observe. More to the point, given how narrow the Hungaroring pit lane is, Kubica was being released directly and dangerously into Sutil’s path even if the German was indeed leaving his stop.

Rosberg had been set for another solid race in which he would once again be Mercedes’ main flag bearer, but Kubica had seemed somewhat subdued, despite the Hungaroring being the closest track in nature to Monaco where he had starred. Perhaps it was just a case of Robert being unable to maintain his mesmeric form this year, which is perfectly reasonable. But in a pleasant twist, it was Vitaly Petrov who stepped up to the plate, out-qualifying his team-mate and coming home in a career-best 5th place.

The Russian was already 5th after a terrific start, before giving the place up to Hamilton somewhat meekly. One cannot criticise him too much for that. With a solid points haul beckoning whether Hamilton passed him or not, and with the Renault on the dirty inside line, it was better to concede the place rather than have a collision in trying to defend too forcefully. As it turned out, Lewis retired anyway and Petrov stoutly held off Nico Hulkenberg for the remainder of the race.

Although Vitaly has been comprehensively beaten by Kubica for most of the year, and at circuits he doesn’t know well he has probably missed a crucial tenth or two in qualifying, overall he has not been that bad at all. In fact, from races like China, Turkey, Germany and here in Hungary, he has shown that he deserves a team that is willing to give him the time to develop. Even though the rumours suggest Renault are looking for a new team-mate for Kubica for 2011, it might be smart to keep Petrov on and help him grow.

On the other side of the experience spectrum there is the one, the only, the great(ly villainous) M. Schumacher. There have been many excuses for Schumacher’s underachievement this season - the fact that the car was not designed to his needs, the lack of testing, how Mercedes have muddled up their developments, and how Michael hasn’t come to terms with this year’s Bridgestones. Some of his stinkers, like China and Canada, have been forgiven or at least played down.

But could this Hungarian GP, at the site of his magnificent 1998 triumph, and where he clinched the 2001 championship, also become the abiding memory of his 2010 comeback? He was abysmal in qualifying and never looked like getting out of Q2. There was a reason for that: Mercedes had gone in two separate directions on set-up, and Rosberg’s was right and Schumacher’s was wrong. In bygone days, it would have been Schumi’s team-mate getting Michael’s set-up, like it or not. How times have changed.

In the race, Schumi looked set to score another paltry point in a year in which he has been classified 9th or worse (or failed to finish) already eight times prior to Hungary. Then Barrichello came up behind him, on fresher tyres, with past wrongs afresh on his mind after the team orders controversy the week before which had affected his fellow Brazilian. Michael, embarrassed enough as it was, and with Austria 2002 being discussed all over again, was always going to adopt the Maginot Line policy: “they shall not pass”.

His defensive squeeze on Rubens was bad enough. His attempt to justify it was even worse. He may not have seen perfectly in those small mirrors, but he knew where Rubens roughly was; he was watching his mirror all the time. He would have known the Williams was drawing alongside. He went right to the edge of the defined track. He was giving Barrichello the bully’s ultimatum: yield, or else. Fortunately, the Brazilian did not give up. More fortunately, they did not have a monumental collision.

As I have suggested on the F1 Rejects forum, what this has highlighted is the flaw with the one-move rule, because drivers make their initial move but then keep edging laterally. Schumacher is the master of the art but this was easily the worst example of it. The bully-boy tactics are only effective when others are in awe of you. Time and time again we have seen this year that people, from Timo Glock to Jaime Alguersuari to Barrichello, aren’t afraid of Schumacher any more.

A ten-place grid drop for Spa, Michael’s favourite circuit, is a fitting punishment for his outrageous manoeuvre. Derek Warwick, the guest steward on this occasion, has revealed that they would have black-flagged Schumacher if there was time to do so, which would have been the first time in a long time, if ever, that a driver was disqualified mid-race for dangerous driving. We give him another award - "Reject of the Race" - which takes Michael to the top of the all-time ROTR leaderboard.

Mercedes are set to switch focus to 2011, but will it make any difference? It is clear that the technical staff aren’t fully on top of the regulations. Do they actually know what Michael is looking for? Plus the Pirelli tyres for next year are a complete unknown. Off-season testing will still be limited, and there will still be no in-season testing next year. In other words, there is still no way of ensuring that everything can be tailor-made to Michael’s needs. Without that, Michael is very mortal, and very flawed.

The fact that Barrichello stole the limelight at Williams detracted from a very good drive from Hulkenberg to claim 6th, the best result of his career so far. Admittedly it was a little by default, thanks to Hamilton, Rosberg and Kubica all retiring and Barrichello’s Webber-like strategy which was not going to work for him, but it is worth remembering that the youngster made it into Q3 whereas Barrichello did not. Before this, Nico’s best finishes were a pair of 10ths; this result will be a major confidence boost.

Likewise, Sauber come away from Hungary with a spring in their step. Pedro de la Rosa’s best result in F1 was 2nd here in 2006, and this was his best weekend of the season. His final Q2 lap which bumped Button out was superb, with his middle sector particularly stunning. Although he dropped behind Hulkenberg at the start, he hung on to the Williams for the rest of the race and deservedly claimed 7th for his first points of the season.

But yet again it was another stirring drive from Kamui Kobayashi that made the headlines, recording his fourth points finish in six races. Although he had missed Q1 thanks to being blocked by an HRT on his final lap, and with the red mist in his eyes he ignored scrutineering and incurred a five-place grid drop for his troubles, he was sensationally up to 16th on the first lap, before moving past Vitantonio Liuzzi when the Force India driver slid wide.

Then Sauber had the presence of mind to not bring him in with everyone else during the safety car period. Staying out an extra lap moved him up to 12th, which became 11th when Schumacher slid wide at turn 1 on the restart, which became 9th once Hamilton dropped out and Barrichello pitted. To come home 9th from 23rd on the grid at the Hungaroring is no mean feat. The challenge for Sauber is to convert this excellent result into sponsorship dollars so that the future of the team is secured going into 2011.

Not having such good weekends were Toro Rosso and Force India. The Italian Red Bulls were off the pace even before Alguersuari’s early retirement, and Sebastien Buemi was not able to join the main midfield battle. The Force Indias lacked downforce, but with a smooth stop Sutil may have scored an 8th or 9th place finish. Liuzzi looked rather ragged, dropped behind Buemi in the stops, and stayed there for the rest of the race. It is the first time all season that the Force Indias have failed to score two races in a row.

All six cars from the new teams finished, the first time that that has happened all season, but there were stories to be told nonetheless. As Lotus focus on 2011, Virgin is able to match them on one-lap pace, and Glock was the fastest of the new team qualifiers for the first time since China some eight races ago. But Timo was also left stranded on the outside at the first corner, which dropped him behind both Lotuses and even his team-mate Lucas di Grassi.

Jarno Trulli made a terrific start in his Lotus having been just pipped by team-mate Heikki Kovalainen in qualifying, and even ran ahead of the Toro Rossos for a while, but the Italian’s race was compromised when Kovalainen pitted behind the safety car and he didn’t. He took his stop a few laps after the restart which dropped him behind Heikki for the remainder of the afternoon. This is a great intra-team contest though: six-all in qualifying, and two-all in races where both cars have finished.

Di Grassi actually ran ahead of Kovalainen in the first stint, but needed a second stop behind the safety car to secure a wheel, but otherwise he scored the fastest lap of the race amongst the new teams and could have finished ahead of the Lotuses. The Brazilian is gradually coming into his own as a Grand Prix driver although he still has his on and off weekends. He needs more weekends like this one and Valencia in the last seven races to show that he deserves to stay in F1 next season.

The HRTs once again endured life in the slow lane. On-board shots during qualifying showed that they looked like sprint cars on heat when it came to ease of handling. Both Bruno Senna and Sakon Yamamoto were over a second off di Grassi in qualifying, but Sakon was only 0.062s off his team-mate. In the race though, as the team split tyre strategies starting Senna on the options and Yamamoto on the primes, Bruno’s fast lap was within a few tenths of Glock, but almost 1.2s faster than his team-mate.

No doubt that had something to do with tyre condition; when fuel loads were at their lowest, Senna was on the more durable primes whereas Yamamoto was on options which he had been running since lap 14. But nevertheless this is one of the dilemmas when it comes to Sakon’s place in F1. He will occasionally show a fleeting sign that proves he’s no Yuji Ide and he can match it with the rest. But at other times he is so far away you wonder how he will survive the 107% cut when it is reintroduced in 2011.