113 races and still waiting
By the summer of 2006, Jenson Button had started 113 Grands Prix without winning one. He had stood on the podium 15 times. He had led races. He had been touted as Britain's next world champion since his debut in 2000. But the victory column remained empty, and the question was becoming less "when" and more "whether."
The Honda RA106 was not a bad car. It was quick in qualifying, respectable in race trim, but it lacked the raw pace to challenge the Renault-McLaren-Ferrari stranglehold on the top step. Button had finished third at Sepang and second at Imola, but those results felt like the ceiling rather than the beginning of something more.
Then came Budapest. The Hungaroring, a circuit where overtaking is ordinarily close to impossible, was about to produce one of the most chaotic races of the decade. The weather forecast promised rain, and the rain delivered.
A grid turned upside down
Saturday's qualifying session was wet, and the order it produced bore no resemblance to the season's usual hierarchy. Felipe Massa took pole for Ferrari, with Rubens Barrichello second in the Honda. Button qualified fourth. Fernando Alonso, the championship leader, started down in 15th after a hydraulic failure in qualifying. Michael Schumacher, his closest title rival, lined up 11th.
The disparity between qualifying and dry-weather pace meant the front of the field would inevitably shuffle once the race began. But nobody anticipated just how radically the order would be torn apart.
Rain, crashes, and the championship implodes
The race started on a wet track, and the chaos was immediate. Alonso, charging through the field from 15th, made contact with Ralf Schumacher on the opening lap and damaged his car. He would eventually crash out on lap 52, his championship lead under sudden pressure.
Kimi Räikkönen, running strongly in the early laps, slammed his McLaren into the barrier at turn 1 on lap 26 after losing the rear on a damp patch. The safety car was deployed, compressing the field and wiping out leads that had been built over half the race distance.
Michael Schumacher's afternoon was even shorter. The Ferrari driver collided with Nick Heidfeld's BMW on lap 50, damaging his suspension. He pitted for repairs, but the car was too badly wounded. Schumacher retired on lap 63. Both championship protagonists were out, and the race was now a free-for-all among the survivors.
Button's tyre gamble pays off
The key to Button's afternoon was timing. In a race where the track kept shifting between wet and dry — sometimes different at one end of the circuit from the other — the decision of when to switch tyres was worth more than any single overtaking move.
Button pitted for dry tyres on lap 53, one lap after the Alonso crash brought out another safety car period. The timing was perfect: the track was just dry enough for slicks, and the safety car had kept the field bunched, meaning he lost minimal time in the transition. While other drivers struggled on intermediates that were shredding on a drying surface, Button found immediate grip on his fresh dry rubber.
He began to carve through the field with a pace that nobody could match. Lap by lap, the gap to the cars ahead shrank, then disappeared, then reversed. By lap 55, he was in the lead.
De la Rosa's improbable second place
The final order was extraordinary. Pedro de la Rosa, standing in for the injured Juan Pablo Montoya at McLaren, finished second — his only podium in Formula 1. Nick Heidfeld took third in the BMW Sauber. Rubens Barrichello was fourth in the other Honda.
De la Rosa's drive was a reminder that in chaotic conditions, the usual hierarchy collapses. A driver who spent most of his career as a test and reserve driver suddenly found himself on the podium at the Hungaroring, not through luck alone but through consistent pace in conditions that punished every mistake.
The Honda garage erupts
When Button crossed the finish line to win, the Honda garage exploded. Team principal Nick Fry was in tears. Button, on the radio, could barely speak. "I can't believe it," he said. "I really can't believe it."
The victory was Honda's first as a constructor since 1967, when John Surtees won at Monza. It would also be their last. By the end of 2008, Honda pulled out of Formula 1 entirely, selling the team to Ross Brawn, who would win the 2009 championship with the same core of engineers and the car that became the Brawn BGP 001.
Button's wait — 113 races — was the longest in F1 history at the time. It has since been surpassed, but the emotional weight of that afternoon in Budapest has not diminished. The driver who had been written off as a nearly-man stood on the top step of the podium and wept. Three years later, he would be world champion.
Why Hungary 2006 endures
Hungary 2006 endures because it is proof that Formula 1's most processional circuit can produce its most spectacular races — if the weather cooperates. The Hungaroring's tight, twisty layout makes dry-weather overtaking almost impossible, but rain erases that limitation and replaces it with a different kind of chaos: one driven by tyre choices, timing, and the willingness to take risks on a surface that changes every lap.
The race also reshaped the 2006 championship. Alonso's crash and Schumacher's retirement meant the title fight tightened dramatically in the second half of the season. Alonso would eventually prevail by 13 points, but Hungary was the race that made the final third of the year a genuine contest.
For Button, it was the end of one story and the beginning of another. The monkey was off his back. He was a Grand Prix winner. Everything that came after — the darkest days of the Honda years, the Brawn miracle, the 2009 title — traces its origin to a wet Sunday in Budapest.