"It's great that I've won after so long and that I don't have to do those interviews any more where they say 'you've done 113 races without a win," said Button.

"It's going to be, 'He's won his first race and looking forwards to the next one,' which takes a lot of weight off my shoulders."

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, a winner in Hungary for Ferrari in 2002, took fourth place for Honda. Coulthard was fifth in a Red Bull and Toyota's Ralf Schumacher sixth.

Kubica finished seventh on his debut for BMW Sauber but was ruled out after his car was found to be two kilos underweight. That lifted Brazilian Felipe Massa to seventh for Ferrari.

Hungary, so often providing one of the duller processional races on the calendar, turned out to be a roller-coaster and the first of the season without a Ferrari or Renault winner.

Schumacher, seven-times a world champion and winner of the last three races, was lapped by Alonso after 25 laps but had fought back strongly as the conditions changed.

"You can always say afterwards, 'Okay, we could have surrendered a spot or two to get a few points.' But on the other hand, that's the way I am," said Schumacher.

"You fight until it's over, until there's nothing left and nothing's spinning anymore. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, we could have done things differently."

Penalised two seconds in qualifying, like Alonso, Schumacher also had to pit for a new front wing after a collision with Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella as the Italian went past in the early stages.

WET RACE

The first wet race in years transformed a slow and twisty circuit, where overtaking is usually a rare treat, into one that offered more passing manoeuvres than anyone could have imagined.

Four of the last five winners in Hungary had come from pole position but not this time with Raikkonen crashing into the back of tail ender Vitantonio Liuzzi's Toro Rosso while lapping the Italian.

"I slowed down a bit to let him by, I was trying to be as helpful as possible," said Liuzzi. "It was a misunderstanding, it was a shame that it turned out this way."