Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher secured fourth consecutive constructor’s title for Ferrari, two races after Schumacher sealed his fifth world championship in France.
Ferrari dominated the season in which they were defeated only twice in Malaysia and Monaco while fantastic F2002, which debuted in Schumacher’s hands in Brazil, lost only one race in Monaco where Coulthard won in McLaren.
Despite great dominance, Ferrari had only four 1-2 victories in the first 12 races (Imola, A1 Ring, Nurburgring and Silverstone), but in Hungary, according to Jean Todt, they achieved the easiest 1-2 of the season which they replicated in the remaining four races in 2002.
Start of the 2002 Hungarian GPBarrichello beat Schumacher in qualifying (1:13.333) for 0.059 seconds, BMW Williams drivers Ralf and Montoya were third and fourth and Fisichella in Jordan was fifth. McLaren drivers were only 10th and 11th on the track they were supposed to be quick because they won on the slow streets of Monte Carlo.
The Ferrari drivers kept the lead on the start although Michael had to defend against Ralf, but that was the only time that the competition was close to the red cars. Michael did not want to threaten Rubens, who fought for the second place in the driver’s championship (before Hungary he was five points behind Montoya), but German grabbed the fastest lap in the lap 72 and smashed Barrichello’s lap for 0.684 seconds.
The third behind the two Ferraris was Ralf Schumacher while fourth and fifth were McLaren drivers Raikkonen and Coulthard after bad qualifying. Raikkonen had a brilliant battle with Montoya which started with Montoya’s mistake in the chicane in the third sector and ended with Raikkonen overtaking him on the outside of second corner.
As Montoya did not score any points, Barrichello took second place in the chamionship after turning a five point gap into a five point lead.
