The Prancing Horse has more performance questions than just a bungled tire strategy call. Meanwhile, Mercedes rounded out the podium once again.
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And just like that, it’s time for summer break.
From spins to periods of rain, Formula One saw a roller coaster weekend in Hungary—Sebastian Vettel announcing his plan to retire at the end of this season, Nicholas Latifi going the fastest in third practice, George Russell snagging his maiden pole and Max Verstappen winning his eighth Grand Prix of the season, despite a P10 start and a spin.
The Dutchman extended his championship lead over Charles Leclerc by 80 points as Ferrari made a questionable strategy call, a theme that has emerged this season. But the Prancing Horse overall lacked pace, and team principal Mattia Binotto said in his post-race press conference that he doesn’t “think we would have won today.”
Mercedes rounded out the podium for a second consecutive weekend with Lewis Hamilton finishing second, and Russell third. The Silver Arrows have quietly found consistency as they addressed their cars’ woes over the first half of the season. Hamilton went as far as to tell Sky Sports that he feels they “aren’t that far behind” Verstappen and Red Bull.
Verstappen said to Sky Sports after the race about how he was joking on Saturday when he said he’d win on Sunday after qualifying 10th due to a reliability issue. Hungaroring is known for how difficult it is to overtake on the circuit, similar to an extent to Monaco.
“Amazing result,” Verstappen said to his team on the radio. “Who would have thought when we woke up that we’d win the race?”
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said to the reigning world champion later over the radio, “Unbelievable Max, that is right up there with your best. Fantastic.”
Here are three takeaways from the Hungarian Grand Prix.
It’s likely a day Ferrari will want to forget.
The question many are likely wondering is what on earth happened to the Prancing Horse?
Carlos Sainz led first practice while Leclerc took second, and both were third in Friday’s sessions when they weren’t on top. Even in a rain soaked third practice on Saturday, they were within the top 10, before qualifying second and third. But lower temperatures and track conditions affected both Leclerc and Sainz’s pace.
When asked, afterward, whether it was possible to win on Sunday, Binotto said, “I don’t think so because, as I said, what we’re lacking today was really speed and pace. I don’t think we would have won today, and the reason of, I don’t know because…we didn’t have the speed somehow to be there for the victory.”
Ferrari will look into the performance while seeking to understand “why the tires were not working properly,” in Binotto’s words. But, the Prancing Horse’s strategy call to pit Leclerc for hards sent social media into a frenzy. Questionable strategy calls have been a theme this season, and Sainz defended the team’s strategy during the French Grand Prix weekend.
Leclerc called the moment a “turning point” and expressed his confusion on the compound call, not only over the team radio but also in post-race interviews. The Alpine duo of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso both visibly struggled with the hard tire, but Ferrari opted to pit him from the lead for the switch. The Monaco native even advised his team against the move, wanting to extend his stint on mediums.
“I think starting on a medium was the right choice, I think stopping for the hard was the turning point of the race,” he said, per Autosport. ”The first stint was the right moment to stop, and we did the right choice there. But on the second stint, I don't know exactly why we did it shorter.
“I made it clear that the medium I wanted to keep it as long as possible, but we pitted very early for the hard, which we need to understand why. We had to pit [again] quite early, because [the] hard was just incredibly difficult.”
The Monaco native spent the first stint running third behind his teammate and eventually jumped ahead of Sainz with the overcut. Leclerc then surged ahead to pass Russell, who was leading, and opened to a three-second gap.
He pitted a second time for the hard tires a few laps past the halfway point, and the compound struggled to get to temperature. Verstappen eventually overtook Leclerc, and on lap 54, the Ferrari driver pitted again for softs, eventually finishing sixth.
Binotto explained that race simulations showed the hard tire was predicted to be the better choice for the last stint with “a difficult couple of laps of warm-up.”
The team principal continued, “It would have been slower to the medium for 10-11 laps, and then it would have come back and been faster than the end of the stint, and it was a 30-lap stint.
“We were trying to protect position on Max. It would have been too long certainly for the softs. Yes, it would have been difficult at the start of the stint, but it would have come back by the end.”
Binotto was asked whether they saw Alpine’s struggles on the compound and considered not pitting in order to cover the Dutchman, to which he said, “Yes, we discussed it.
“During the race and looking at what’s going on, we have as well looked at what was happening with the other hard tires. We took all considerations, we discussed what would have been best and that’s the choice that we made. It certainly was not the right one today.”
He maintained that the bigger issue for the Prancing Horse on Sunday was pace. Sainz echoed as such, saying during post-race interviews, “I think we were lacking pace, and I also don’t think we did that many mistakes. I think when you lack pace like Red Bull did in Austria, no-one said ‘can Red Bull keep doing these mistakes?’ No. We had a very bad pace today, I think.”
He added, per ESPN: “We need to analyze how we can go on Friday from being half a second clear on pace in race pace from everyone, and pushing flat out on tires to all of a sudden degrading more with 30 degrees less track temp, and not have that pace advantage. For me, that was clearly something on the pace that went away from us in these temperatures specifically.”
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McLaren arguably leads the midfield.
Don’t let the seventh and 15th finish positions for Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, respectively, fool you. McLaren is shaping into the midfield leader despite a recent surge from Alpine.
Norris qualified fourth, starting behind his former teammate Sainz. He commented on his surprise on Saturday, given the faster paced drivers behind him, such as Hamilton and Verstappen.
“I’m very happy with the fourth. Probably wasn’t expecting it: to be ahead of two Red Bulls is never the expectation,” Norris said, per formula1.com. “But also, to cut off the gap to the Ferraris, two-tenths off Charles, it’s not a lot knowing they have a much quicker car than us. I’m happy, felt like I did some good laps, put in the laps when I needed to, and I did a good job. So, I’m very happy with a lot of things.”
Come Sunday, Norris described the Grand Prix as a “pretty reasonable race,” adding that it was “tricky with strategy” and “with conditions.” He continued, saying, “We’re not quite on par, just yet, with the three teams ahead of us, but it was still a positive day in terms of our pace comparing to Alpine and more convincingly this time rather than getting overtaken in Paul Ricard.”
The 22-year-old finished seven, behind both drivers from all of the top three teams.
The Alpine duo of Ocon and Alonso did not have the easiest Hungarian Grand Prix, but with a double points finish, they head into the summer break with a four-point lead over McLaren for fourth in the constructor standings.
Alonso said the team didn’t have the pace Sunday that they may have expected on Saturday, after qualifying fifth and sixth. “Today was a little bit worse than what we thought, especially with the hard tires struggling in these temperatures” Alonso said in the team’s post-race video. He added, “Keep up with McLaren will be the key. Our strength is that—the team effort—and we try to keep doing it.”
While Ricciardo has struggled this season, Sunday looked like it could have gone in his favor. The Australian showed flashes of his old form as he overtook both Alonso and Ocon as the Grand Prix approached the halfway mark.
He continued his strong track position, holding off Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll while on the medium tire, but McLaren opted to pit Ricciardo for hards. Stroll emerged on softs, and Ricciardo had no grip. He ran into Stroll and was subsequently dealt a five-second penalty, which he was not able to recover from.
“I tried to avoid contact but I couldn’t and unfortunately hit him, spun him around and got a penalty and then that was it. The hard didn’t work for us, I could just never really get it working,” Ricciardo said in the team’s post-race recap. “I’m looking forward to the break, of course, and will try to come back with a little more speed in the second half of the year.”
Where things stand heading into summer break.
Could we see another round of Hamilton vs. Verstappen again in the coming months? Possibly.
The Brit said it himself—Mercedes is “closing the gap” on Ferrari and Red Bull, who dominated the first half of the season. It has been a consistent surge with the double threat of Hamilton and Russell, the latter only recording one DNF compared to Ferrari’s combined seven and Red Bull’s five. Hamilton, meanwhile, has secured back-to-back second place finishes before summer break and five straight podiums, starkly contrasting Mercedes’ uncharacteristically slow start to the 2022 campaign.
“We have found something and we have been able to get a little bit closer and been able to compete with the Ferraris,” Hamilton said to Sky Sports. “I honestly think in a straight out race we might not be that far behind Max.
“So I am really excited about the second half of the season and proud of my team for not giving up.”
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff praised Hamilton, saying to Sky, “He was a little bit in the shadows, nobody really looked at where he came from and then suddenly, he was putting in times quicker than the leaders.”
He added: “I think Lewis in Budapest, that is a success story and I think we lost the race for him yesterday.”
There’s only 97 points separating Ferrari from first-place Red Bull, and 30 points between the Prancing Horse and the Silver Arrows. Meanwhile, the driver standings are as follows: Verstappen (258), Leclerc (178), Sergio Pérez (173), Russell (158), Sainz (156) and Hamilton (146). The next closest driver outside of the top three teams is Norris with 76 points.
The race to the championship title has been a roller coaster this season as Leclerc took an early lead while Verstappen tallied two DNFs in the first three races. But, the Dutchman has won seven of the last 10 races since, only finishing outside of the top-five once, at Silverstone.
“Strategy played a big part in our victory. We were due to start on the hard tyre but switched things up as a result of the ambient conditions,” Horner said in Red Bull’s post-race recap. “This win gives us a healthy lead going into the break but there are still areas to improve on. Ferrari are still quick, Mercedes are coming back as you saw today. There is plenty more still to come.”
Leclerc, meanwhile, saw his title push solely fall apart between reliability issues, questionable Ferrari strategy calls and mistakes of his own at Imola and Paul Ricard. But when asked about his championship hopes, he said, “Before thinking about the championship, to be honest, as a team we need to understand what we need to do to get better, because otherwise it’s going to be really difficult.”
He added: “You know, it always feels like there’s always something going on, whatever is, reliability, mistakes, whatever. But we need to be better putting a weekend together. And yeah, we will try and use the few days that we have to reset, but obviously also to analyze and to understand where we need to be better, and what we can do to get better, because this is extremely important.”
There’s just nine races to go so enjoy the summer break, Formula One fans. We’ll see you back for the Belgian Grand Prix on Aug. 28.
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