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.

[9] 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.

Much of the talk prior to the weekend was about the appointment of Jaime Alguersuari to replace Sébastien Bourdais at Scuderia Toro Rosso.

[11] Felipe Massa felt that Alguersuari—who had 118 prior single-seater races under his belt, with 17 wins[6]—was too young and inexperienced to be driving a contemporary Formula One car.

Of course, it would be fantastic to carry this over into qualifying and the race, but we need to be realistic: I’m sure tomorrow morning will give us a much clearer idea of the position of the Brawns and the Red Bulls.

[19] 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.

[20][21] Jarno Trulli was the top Toyota in both sessions, finishing up sixth and eighth, beating teammate Timo Glock, who was fourteenth and tenth.

[14] 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.

[14] 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.

[30] 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.

[31] The debris, a spring from the rear suspension damper (weighing around 800 grams),[32] was suspected of having come from the car of Barrichello, who had reported that something had come loose minutes beforehand.

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.

[34] 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.

He suffered a head cut, bone damage to his skull and a concussion, and remained under observation in intensive care, in the Állami Egészségügyi Központ military hospital in Budapest.

It was also the first time that Ferrari fielded only one car in the race since the 2002 French Grand Prix when Rubens Barrichello failed to start due to ignition problems.

[40] Alonso retained his pole position lead into the first corner, followed by a fast-starting Hamilton, Webber, Räikkönen and Vettel, who had made a slow start from the "dirty" side of the grid.

Hamilton and Räikkönen nearly touched on the run to turn one, which in effect slowed the Finn slightly and allowed Webber to maintain third.

The counter-effect caused Räikkönen and Vettel to stack up, with the German's Red Bull making slight contact with the rear of the Ferrari.

The missing wheel was replaced, enabling him to continue in the race, but he returned to the pits on the following lap, as the earlier fuel pump problem proved terminal.

[49] The two cars just avoided a collision, which almost caused the Red Bull to career into a number of the Williams mechanics, who were standing in the pit lane at the time.

[45] Rosberg finished fourth for the third race in succession,[40] heading home Kovalainen, Glock, Button and Trulli rounded out the top eight point scorers.

Outside the point-scoring positions were Nakajima, Barrichello (the first time that a Brawn car had finished a race outside the points), Heidfeld, Piquet, Kubica, Fisichella and the Toro Rossos of Alguersuari and Buemi.

The team asked me to look after the tyres in which through all the great experiences I have had—good or bad—I was able to apply that today, so really a big thank you to all the guys and all the fans that have always given me support and never gave me up and to all my family."

[56][57] Red Bull had been in a similar situation at the German Grand Prix, when Vettel was released unsafely into the path of Kazuki Nakajima during qualifying,[56] and the team were given a €10,000 fine.

[58] Renault received the harshest punishment of the three incidents, in the form of a suspension from the next race of the season, the European Grand Prix.

[66] After being visited by Ferrari and Fiat president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and also Rubens Barrichello, doctors from the Állami Egészségügyi Központ military hospital released a statement saying that Massa could make a full recovery.

Rumours began circulating that any one out of Ferrari advisor Michael Schumacher, and the team's two test drivers Luca Badoer and Marc Gené would be replacing Massa for the European Grand Prix, and the succeeding events.

On 29 July, Schumacher agreed to drive the car until Massa was fit enough to return, subject to medical tests.

[74] However, Schumacher called off his return on 11 August, due to a lingering neck injury which he had suffered six months earlier, while testing a Honda CBR1000RR motorcycle at Circuito Cartagena.