Round 12/23: Review of the Hungarian Grand Prix Race

Red Bull Racing has claimed its 12th straight victory with a dominating performance from lights out to the checkered flag, with Max Verstappen winning his 7th consecutive grand prix. McLaren’s Lando Norris finished in P2 with another impressive performance from the young Brit, holding his position under pressure from Sergio Perez during the closing stages of the race. Sergio Perez finished in P3, a welcome return to the podium starting after a brilliant recovery drive from P9.

The top 8 drivers began with a stint on mediums while Perez started on Hards in P9 and Carlos Sainz on softs hoping to gain places. The race began with Verstappen taking the lead from Lewis Hamilton in Turn 1 and Oscar Piastri leapfrogged both Norris and Hamilton into P2. Zhou Guanyu sufferred with anti-stall during his start and lost 11 places before Turn 1. In an attempt to make up for these positions, Guanyu pushed ever so slightly, resulting in him braking later in turn 1, leading to him hitting Ricciardo, who, in turn, took out the Alpines from the race in a chain reaction.

Sainz succeeded in his endeavor to make places at the start, hopping 5 places from P11, while Perez was stuck behind Fernando Alonso for the better part of 8 laps. However, Sainz couldn't make use of his lightning start on softs as he was stuck behind his teammate, and true to Ferrari's nature, they didn't release the faster car once again. Releasing Sainz at that point would have definitely put Hamilton under pressure, who was not his usual self after losing three places at turn 1. Elsewhere, Piastri held P2 for 19 laps before being undercut by his teammate, who was under pressure from an undercut by Hamilton. Once Piastri pitted for hard tires, it became a completely different race for him as he was unable to keep either Hamilton or Perez behind him, losing two more places and ultimately finishing in P5. Charles Leclerc had a disappointing race, finishing 7th after having an extended pit stop of 9.4 seconds due to a gun failure and a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

George Russell drove the Mercedes in a superb recovery drive from P18 to P6, overtaking the Ferrari of Sainz in the closing stages of the race and finishing within 5 seconds of Leclerc with the time penalty. Alfa Romeo had a forgettable Sunday, with neither driver able to take advantage of their qualifying positions yesterday, finishing P12 and P16 with Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, respectively. Alphatauri also couldn't score any points from the weekend, with Ricciardo losing places due to the Alpine-Alfa Romeo incident, and Yuki Tsunoda suffering from a 7-second pit stop after driving beautifully in the initial laps on softs, finishing in P11.

The Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll finished P9 and P10, respectively, in another pretty disappointing weekend with the new Pirelli tires. The advantage seems to have shifted towards McLaren after Aston Martin pulled out 6 podium finishes in the first 10 races. Haas, another Ferrari-powered car, had another tough race with tire degradation, finishing P14 and P17. Alexander Albon had a good race, but with all the five top teams finishing the race, he couldn't make it into the top 10. The other Williams of Logan Sargeant finished P18.

Q2

Q2 was entirely on Mediums and it was all about whether atleast one of the Ferraris would make it into Q3. It was Carlos Sainz who missed out on a Q3 appearance by 2 thousands of a second to Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc managed to make it into the top 6 just in the nick of time.

The first runs in Q2 were dominated by the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri after Max Verstappen had his lap time (P1) deleted for track limits violation. Sergio Perez had missed out on 5 straight Q3’s where his team mate eventually took pole position and was under immense pressure coming into this weekend. Red bull took a decision to send him out first in both the runs of Q2 and Q3 and he had no issues whatsoever in Q2 and was at P3 during the initial run. Lance Stroll had trouble with track limits too and had his time deleted. Although he tried doing a second run on his initial mediums but there was absolutely no life in those tires for a rerun.

For the second runs and ultimately for a spot in Q3 it was an uphill battle between the teams. Alpine finished on 12th and 15th with Ocon having another poor qualifying session and Gasly compounded Alpine’s issues by having his time deleted for track limits. Ricciardo took P13 and Lance Stroll took P14 to round up the spots for a Q2 exit. Valtteri Bottas took an impressive P4 in Q2 while Hulkenberg treated us with another impressive Q3 result with P7 on board. Zhou Guanyu was the other surprise at P9 this weekend and would go on to take an eventual P5, the best qualifying position in his career.

Q3

The first laps of Q3 panned out in the usual self with Max Verstappen taking provisional pole with 0.126 seconds margin over Lewis Hamilton and 0.292 seconds over Lando Norris. All three drivers had scope for improvement on the softs and it was going to be a one lap shoot out at the end.

Mercedes held back Lewis Hamilton for as long as possible to give him the best grip on the track. Max Verstappen left the pits earlier than usual but could n’t improve on his earlier time. He had a yellow Sector 1 and 3 and in the end fell short of his time set earlier in Q3. Lando Norris tried his best to beat Max Verstappen but fell short by 0.088 seconds and it seemed like Max Verstappen had done sufficient to take a pole position once again, would have been his 6th in a row. However, Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton had other plans in store and as Toto rightly pointed out earlier, the Mercedes were definitely quicker on the soft tyres. By the barest of margins, Lewis Hamilton grabbed his 104th pole position and his 9th at Hungaroring.

Sergio Perez disappointed once again albeit in Q3 this time by finishing 9th. The Alfa Romeo’s of Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas sandwiched the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in P6. Fernando Alonso had another anonymous weekend finishing at P8 and Nico Hulkenberg finished in P10.

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