Hungary GP Race Report

Obviously, it was going to be a win for Verstappen so we had to look further back for any interest.

It was a clean start at the front of the grid, with Verstappen making an easy inside corner pass into and out of turn 1.  Hamilton is unused to making pole position starts.  Piastri took his team mate and Hamilton to take second position with Norris putting Hamilton in 4th.  Behind them Zhou nudged Ricciardo into one Alpine who tagged the next, which didn't bring out a Safety Car but the Yellow Flag briefly.  Ocon and Gasly were both retired straight away.  Zhou received a penalty.  The impact split Ocon's seat in half and the Frenchman had to go to the medical centre to have his back checked.

Sainz caught up to his team mate quickly from further back on the grid but was on soft tyres.  Russell made up several places from the back of the grid.  Perez will regret only qualifying in 9th position, as he had to try and get past strong-defender Alonso (obviously he has such a great car that it wasn't too many laps looking at the Spaniard's bahookey).

Albon took an early pit stop on Lap 9, to put on the hard tyres and came out in last place.  It seems a desperate strategy from Williams but other teams reacted.  As the laps went by, Sainz figured out his own pit strategy, still behind LeClerc.  That is until Ferrari had a slow stop, 9.8 months, and LeClerc came out in 11th.    The McLarens took their pit stops one after the other.  Norris built a healthy gap to Hamilton and got a free stop and tried the undercut on Piastri, which worked despite Piastri being served a 2.0 second pit stop.

Hamilton was left flustered behind the McLarens, with some tentative use of the engine restrictions.  His team mate, Russell, kindly let him through as it would be several laps until he pitted.  When he did he was in 14th behind the early stopper Albon who was in 11th.  Returnee Ricciardo continued to pootle about in last place.  Perez had to put in the overtake moves to move up the grid and prove his worth as a driver.

As Hamilton was told to "lift and coast", he was still able to defend against Perez.  Red Bull bought him in for a pit stop as well and he came in at the same time as Piastri.  This was the moment that McLaren found an awful pit stop in their tool box and threw that spanner into the works, whilst Red Bull managed 1.9 seconds.  LeClerc had a ding dong over the radio with his team about strategy or lack of. Alonso then had a poor pit stop.  Perez continued his progress towards the podium.  LeClerc was given a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.  A lot of the action happened in the pit stops, which hasn't shaped a race in many seasons.

Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren dominated the top 10, then Ferrari.  The Aston Martins finished 9th and 10th taking the last of the points places.  It no longer looks like Alonso is challenging for a podium at every race.  We can only hope that next year's car is being prepared and it will be a doozy - especially as they have poached everyone apart from Adrian Newey to build it.  Albon continues to shine in his Williams, finishing 11th but failing to get any points this time.  Ricciardo finally fininshed where he started, in 13th place, two places ahead of his team mate.  This must count as a good restart to his racing career?  Verstappen described his car as a "rocket ship", which is fairly accurate and Norris was delighted to finish second.

We were promised a safety car to spice up proceedings but none came.  Hopefully it will rain in Belgium; it's been a very rainy summer so far so I would feel cheated if a little wet weather didn't shake things up at the last race before the break.