Formula One Vault

This Grand Prix – Hungary

Hello, This Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race of the first half of the season was a genuine fight between Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. As Ferrari head to the beaches for the summer more questions remain, not new but the same questions we were asking a few years ago. Max Verstappen meanwhile leads the championship by eighty points with ten races to go, a points haul which has never been overhauled… so is the game over already for Ferrari? Are Mercedes back?

General News

F1 has launched a campaign to end abuse online and at events, in the wake of racist, sexist and homophobic incidents at the Austrian Grand Prix. The campaign called ‘Drive It Out,’ will bring together drivers, teams and stakeholders to block and report abuse online.

They will be pressuring social media platforms to take greater action. F1’s actions will apply to any abuse witnessed of drivers, teams, fans, broadcasters or journalists. The move comes after a rise in abuse surrounding F1, both at events and online.

In Austria last month, fans reported numerous incidents of abuse against minorities and women at the Red Bull Ring. This could also be seen as stepping up and taking action two years after ‘We Race As One,’ campaign, and while we know there always be this abuse it needs to be stopped.

Weekend Recap

FP1 saw Carlos Sainz top the times with an 18.750 going a tenth and a quarter ahead of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. As the Hungaroring rubbered in lap times tumble by four and a half seconds at a circuit which is hardly used the rest of the year. The gap between the top three saw them switch positions several times, with the McLaren of Lando Norris fourth.

FP2 saw Leclerc top the times going over two tenths faster than Sainz’s time in FP1 with a 16.445. that put him ahead of Lando Norris who spilt the two Ferraris after going almost a hundredth and a half ahead of Carlos Sainz. The top four traded times throughout the session, but it was Leclerc who ended the afternoon fastest as he looks to bounce back from the crash at Paul Ricard last weekend.

FP3 took place under wet conditions, but there was a surprise right at the end as the circuit dried out with the Williams of Nicolas Latifi topping the times with a 41.480 on the inters going six tenths ahead of Leclerc and teammate Alex Albon. The flurry of times at the end came after a brief red-flag period caused by Sebastian Vettel, who crashed his Aston Martin at Turn Ten.

Despite struggling all weekend, it was George Russell who took a surprise maiden pole position after going four-hundredths of a second faster than the two Ferraris. The Mercedes driver’s lap didn’t see him set any purple sectors but combined it was good enough to take pole. It was a difficult session for Red Bull, Verstappen on his final attempt complained of no power and understeer leaving him tenth ahead of teammate Perez.

Verstappen took victory despite starting tenth after clearing the midfield early on he soon chipped away at Ferrari and Mercedes through the middle of the race. The Dutchman overtook Hamilton on lap-fifty after joining the top six on lap ten, Mercedes had led the majority of the race after Hamilton past Leclerc on lap thirty-one.

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton says there is “plenty of fuel in the tank” after completing his three-hundredth Grand Prix on Sunday. The seven-time champion was only the sixth driver to reach the milestone with second in Paul Ricard, but he will not only be looking for an eighth title but the first member of the three hundred club to win a race.

While 2022 has been a tough season for him I feel would be fighting at the front and winning races if Mercedes gave him the car capable of winning. Could he possibly be starting to rethink his comments to stop at forty made this time last year? This weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix marks the latest point in the season that the Englishman has had to wait for his first win of the season, both in 2009 with McLaren and 2013 with Mercedes.

Despite struggling all weekend it was George Russell who took pole, but after qualifying, he said he would be “very shocked” if they were fastest in the race. On Friday, the Englishman said it was  a “disastrous day” when he came away from FP2 in only eighth and nine tenths off the pace.

As well the team’s race pace was around a second off Verstappen, which was according to Russell “the worst it’s been.” Mercedes are coming back but are they able to be clever with how they approach the race? If Russell were to was to win be the sixth driver to score a maiden win in Budapest. However, team boss Toto Wolff did reckon a win was achievable at the narrow track.

Hamilton finished the race second in a brilliant drive from seventh but he believed that he could have fought for the win if it wasn’t for the DRS issue in Q3. The seven-time F1 world champion says though the cooler conditions on Sunday helped the team secure their second consecutive double podium, he could have taken victory were it not for his struggles on Saturday.

Speaking after the race, he said: “I definitely think being a little bit cooler, it seemed to work a little bit better for us. I can’t tell you exactly why, but grateful for it. I was hoping it was gonna rain at the end so I could challenge Max, but we ran out of laps”

You need to say it’s been a strange weekend for Mercedes they looked very far off the pace on Friday and had a difficult Saturday. They are making progress and you need to say have a better race car and ability to maximising results from Ferrari’s blunders and we saw both drivers maximise results in Hungary.

Hamilton added “I really want to acknowledge my team who have continued to push, never give up through this tough year that we’ve had so far. For us to be on the podium, both cars to be on the podium twice is pretty special for us. And really unlucky for George today. The other guys still have a bit of an edge.”

Red Bull

Christian Horner says that Mercedes are “getting closer and closer” to his team and their title rivals after the eight-time constructors champions scored their best result of the season at the French Grand Prix. Mercedes are making progress and we have seen Horner insist over the last few months the eight time constructors champions bounce back.

Horner told Motorsport.com, “They were certainly talking up their chances coming into the weekend. I think in the end, Max was reasonably comfortable. But you can see they’re chipping away at it, they’re getting closer.”

Mercedes had expected to go better in Le Castellet given the circuit’s smooth surface and layout which has suited the car all season. However, Hamilton was still eight tenths off Leclerc’s pole time with Russell only managing sixth, before both drivers finished the race second and third.

Following the pace shown by Ferrari in practice, Verstappen said he believed the team “can’t compete with Ferrari in the dry.” Verstappen placed fourth just under three tenths behind Leclerc and fears his Red Bull team won’t be able to keep up if it stays dry in Budapest.

The weather forecast shows that heavy rain is expected for the rest of the weekend, that could mix things up. But still Verstappen believed that Red Bull still had some homework to do after struggling to find the optimal balance on the twisty and demanding Hungaroring.

Teammate Sergio Perez was upbeat despite finishing the day down in ninth, nearly a second away from Leclerc, having been experimenting with the set-up of his RB18.

Max Verstappen says he “prefers” his rivalry with Ferrari and Charles Leclerc to the World Championship battle he had with Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes last season.  Verstappen emerged victorious over Hamilton after a controversial end to an intense season-long battle between them, which saw several flashpoints both on and off the track.

Speaking to Sky Sports, the Dutchman said “I prefer what we have now because, first of all, Charles I know very well, he’s a nice guy, we are a similar age – I think we are only three weeks apart.” Last year got really intense and bitter, Abu Dhabi was just the climax of the story.

From what I’ve seen there is more respect and always been lingering throughout this season as always, ‘when does this boilover?’ I also think being a similar age and both being on the same trajectory being at an earlyish stage of his career?

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc took responsibility for an “unacceptable mistake” which saw him crash out while leading at Paul Ricard. The Ferrari driver admits he needs to cut out the mistakes or it’s not worth him performing “at the highest level” of his career.

We know throughout his career Leclerc has been very self-critical, he has admitted that he is losing too many points. I wonder if he needs a year of building and growing as a driver to become a better driver but we are still seeing these mistakes, he also admitted last weekend didn’t suit his driving style.

Another error in the spotlight is the teams decision in that race to pit Carlos Sainz late on, which he was frustrated about as he believed that cost him the chance of victory. He added that he was convinced that they did it with the best of intentions and the best spirit.

Speaking after the race, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto was adamant they made the right choice, saying that Sainz was short on tyre life and it would have been risky to go to the end on the tyres.

Following qualifying, Leclerc said there was “nothing special” is needed from Ferrari regarding team orders or strategy. Leclerc was third on the grid for Sunday’s race, but as he has done all season insisted that team orders were not needed to beat Red Bull.

He said, “we need just to do the best job possible. So, we focus on ourselves. I don’t think there’s anything needed there. We just obviously [must] not take any risk in between the cars. But that’s as normal. So, I don’t think any anything special [is required] for tomorrow.”

Sainz also agreed that Ferrari’s best bet to inflict maximum damage on Red Bull will be to focus solely on deposing Russell and claiming the win.

Leclerc said as well during that qualifying session he was struggling massively on the tyres which prevented him from challenging for the front row, Reflecting on the afternoon, where the ability to switch the tyres on for a single lap proved key to the pace at the front, Leclerc said that things had not been easy for him.

He said “Today, it’s not been a great day. I’ve been struggling massively with the tyres and just had a lot of inconsistency to put the tyres in the right window with those conditions.”

Ferrari’s weekend went from bad to worst with yet more blunders on a strategy where Leclerc went from leading the race to sixth. The team chose not one of the six recommended by Pirelli, the decision to switch the Monacan to the hard was even more bizarre given  the fact Kevin Magnussen and both Alpine drivers had struggled with the same compound during the race.

Leclerc had wanted to stay on the medium and switch to the soft tyre at the end. He said after the race,  “I made it clear that the medium [tyre] I wanted to keep it as long as possible, but we pitted very early for the hard, which we need to understand why.”

Leclerc’s hopes of challenging for the championship have fallen apart this year through a combination of Ferrari strategic blunders, reliability issues and two mistakes of his own at Imola and Paul Ricard.

McLaren

McLaren went into the weekend admitted its feeling the “aftershock” of the difficult fortnight in Bahrain in March. One of the legacies of that plan was that McLaren would opt for a series of spaced-out major updates, rather than consistently bringing new parts to every race. It has also left the team behind its midfield rivals, who make bigger steps when their upgrades arrive.

Technical director James Key explained that things were set in stone in the wake of what happened at the very first race. ” explained Key “To be brutally honest, when you get a shocker like Bahrain, you have to make a plan. When you make a plan, you put everything in a direction, as it’s very difficult to rein in a plan.”

I think this proves something we always say ahead of the opening races you need to hit the ground running well as it can affect your whole season. We know are out of sync to the traditional upgrade plan we see, which we know is leading partly to more unpredictability in the midfield.

Despite nearing the top of the times in practice on Friday, Lando Norris said is “not expecting to be fighting for pole.” Norris was just two tenths off Charles Leclerc in FP2 he said that can be put down to McLaren running its engines in a slightly higher setting than the rest on Fridays.

Asked if he could fight for pole on Saturday, Norris told Sky Sports, “No. I mean, things are feeling good, the car’s in a good place. It seems to be suiting this track characteristic a little bit more for sure, but we’re always a little bit quick in FP2 than we end being normally.”

“We turn up [the engine] a little bit more than others do just to get our first reading of qualifying, which is what we got today.”

Teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who was just 0.427s off the pace in fifth on Friday, echoed Norris’ comments and doesn’t believe McLaren has made “that big a step” to where it was one week ago in France.

Aston Martin

The big news for the team was the announcement on Thursday that Sebastian Vettel would be retiring at the end of the year. This idea the team had eighteen months ago of wanting to help the German rediscover his form has failed, I think he was getting to the point after four years where he hasn’t delivered where he may want to focus on his family.

Throughout the season the team has made it clear they had wanted to keep Vettel, but the German made the decision he wanted to step away from the sport. In recent years he has become an outspoken campaigner on social and environmental issues. I think he doesn’t want to be an Fernando Alonso and just keep going,

the Four time champion said “The decision to retire has been a difficult one for me to take, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. it the end of the year I want to take some more time to reflect on what I will focus on next; it is very clear to me that, being a father, I want to spend more time with my family.”

Williams

Jost Capito says that Logan Sargeant putting himself into contention for a 2023 seat by winning the F2 title would “a great headache” to have. The British-based team are believed to be considering replacing Nicolas Latifi with Alpine-backed and current F2 champion Oscar Piastri on loan.

Haas

Haas brought there first big upgrades of the season this weekend, on Thursday Kevin Magnussen admitted he was “a little anxious” to see what impact on its performance. History tells us that the team hasn’t made progress with upgrade, but how they have optimised the package to be seventh in the constructor’s championship .

Magnussen said last week in France, “We’ve seen this year that we’ve been finding performance more than we thought we would with this, but we basically haven’t really upgraded since winter testing. It’s been a little bit surprising to see how much more performance we’ve been extracting.”

Facts

• Verstappen started from P10. Prior to today Red Bull had only won one race in their F1 history from outside the top six on the grid, when Daniel Ricciardo triumphed in the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix from P10.
• Lewis Hamilton, broke the record for the most laps led at a single venue in championship history today. The old record was held by Bill Vukovich at Indianapolis
• Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas was the only driver not to reach the chequered flag, but all twenty drivers were classified finishers for the thirteenth time in championship’s history (it happened at the French, Belgian and Turkish Grands Prix in 2021).

Results Summary

Championship Standings

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