Free Practice...
FP1:
After a week of waiting, formula one is back! This weekend we find ourselves in the beautiful countryside of Budapest at the hungaroring. The temperatures soared; as did the anticipation for this week's grand prix - the dutch fans again dominated the grandstands with a few British and Finnish fans, as this was a popular race for fans of Kimi and Valtteri.
As the green light flashed at the end of the pitlane, the cars got out on track. In usual fashion, the Haas cars were out first, exploring the circuit for the first time. Unfortunately for the Ferrari boys of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, cold tyres and less rubber on the track led to quite a few adventures off the track - even on out laps.
Fernando Alonso, who celebrated his 40th birthday on Thursday, had a spin showing how even the most experienced in this sport can make little mistakes. No big damage to his Alpine as he limped back to the pits on tyres which were majorly flat spotted.
From one of our most experienced to one of the least experienced, Yuki Tsunoda was having a bad session. Double waved yellows were brought out in sector 2, turn 9 to be precise, for Yuki going off - he saved it from going into the wall luckily. About ten minutes later however, Yuki brought out the red flag due to spinning into the barrier - the rear of the car getting a lot of damage and what appears to be a new gearbox needed to be fitted.
On the other side of the Alpha Tauri garage, Pierre Gasly was having issues with his headrest, saying that he cannot move his head. Although this does sound a little trivial to include, it's important to point out that these Formula One cars have extremely limited vision; not being able to move your head restricts vision even more, being potentially dangerous. Luckily the Alpha Tauri mechanics sorted it out for the Frenchman and there were no more complaints from him.
Interestingly, Antonio Giovinazzi was having a very quiet session with barely any running. The Italian only completed 5 laps during the whole session, spending a lot of time in the garage.
We finished with the usual suspects on top with Max topping the times, followed by Bottas and Hamilton in close succession. Perez seemed to struggle being almost a second off the pace from Max, a worrying trend starting to appear with Checo in practice.
FP2:
Although many engineers and mechanics argue that a new chassis does absolutely nothing to the cars performance, Ocon seemed to be proving that wrong - pulling out an impressive P4 in second practice, however he was 7 tenths off the lead time.
I, like many, were hyping up Hungary to be a “Ferrari track”, getting on the bandwagon that Ferrari could pull out some incredible pace due to the plethora of slow and medium speed corners around the Hungaroring - however this practice session quieted a few of those expectations due to the Ferraris still struggling with tyre warmup and degradation (despite the sweltering temperatures!). The boys in red finished the session P11 and P12.
Max Verstappen seemed to say advantage Red Bull in FP1, however with a changing track, Valtteri Bottas was the one to step up to the top of the timings, showing how this weekend is still all the play for, with Hamilton being less than a tenth of a second behind and Max cooling off his earlier FP1 pace to be 3 tenths behind. Perez, still struggling to be close with his teammate, was closer in this session being 6 tenths off Max however he was complaining of severe grading on his soft tyre run - this may have been a reason for some of his lack of pace.
FP3:
The big story of this session was Mick Schumacher's hefty crash into the tyre barrier at turn 11 - as always with these sorts of crashes in practice, we saw a red flag as Mick was picked up from the site unharmed by the medical car. “I know what this means” was a very cryptic message he said over the radio, it was referring to the fact that due to the proximity of Free Practice 3 to qualifying, it is unlikely that Mick will take part at all in qualifying, which turned out to be true. Mick will also take a 5 place grid penalty for a new gearbox.
The pitlane was full of drama to the detriment of Alfa Romeo, who led Giovinazzi out into the path of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin and then again into a near miss with Pierre Gasly near the pit entry - these sorts of incidents usually do not incur a sporting penalty and are more likely to get a financial penalty to the team for an unsafe release.
Hamilton stormed to P1 in the final practice session with Verstappen and Bottas close behind in second and third. The Ferraris were back on form pulling out a very respectable P4 and P5 result, with rivals Mclaren still chasing their tails in P6 and P8.
Practice is over, time for qualifying in Hungary!
Qualifying...
Q1:
This weekend we are back with the old, well known qualifying format where three qualifying sessions would make up the start grid of the race. Mick Schumacher didn’t participate in the qualifying sessions, after his crash in FP3, leaving Mazepin as only Haas on the track. For the top teams, everything ran smoothly in Q1; Verstappen set the fastest lap, followed by Hamilton and Bottas when the checkered flag was waved.
At the back of the field, Mazepin, Latifi, Russell, Tsunoda, Giovinazzi and Raikkönen were battling for a place in the next session. Russell, in his Williams, had previously shown some spectacular things in the qualifying sessions, but put down a time that was only good enough for seventeenth. For the first time this season, the young British driver was knocked out in Q1.
In his last lap of qualifying, Daniel Ricciardo set down the 13th time, barely making it into Q2. Raikkönen followed right after, slightly improving the time of the McLaren driver and taking over 13th. The Alfa Romeo of Giovinazzi set down the 15th time; good news for Ricciardo, as the Italian was now the driver at risk.
Mazepin, Latifi and Tsunoda weren’t able to improve their times and were, together with Russell and Schumacher, the five drivers that did not make it into Q2.
Q2:
Halfway through Q2, Hamilton was leading the time charts, when Carlos Sainz lost control over his car and crashed into the barriers of the final corner. The session was then red flagged to get the car off the track safely.
In the second part of this session, Verstappen took over the lead of Hamilton, setting down a spectacular lap of 1:15:6 and held on to this time until the end of the session.
Stroll put down the 8th time, kicking Ricciardo out of the top 10 for the time being. The McLaren driver still had to finish and he did, improving on Stroll’s time while moving himself to 8th, putting both Vettel and Perez at risk.
Lando Norris had set down the second fastest time, behind Verstappen. After Norris, Perez crossed the line and moved up to fourth place. Vettel followed, putting down 10th time and kicked both his team mate Stroll and Ricciardo out of the top 10. Raikkönen couldn’t improve his time and finished 13th. The last to cross the line was Antonio Giovinazzi, who set down the 14th time, being the slowest in Q2.
Q3:
The final session of qualifying saw a great battle between the two Mercedeses and Red Bulls. Verstappen went out and put down a fast time, but was followed by Hamilton who improved on Verstappen’s time in every sector. Bottas followed the two and put down times that were just a few tenths slower than Max’s. The Red Bull of Max Verstappen crossed the line with a 1:15:9, but as the two Mercedeses had great pace, this time would most likely be put under pressure.
As it turns out, that was exactly what Bottas did. He dove under Max’s time, and put down a lap of 1:15:7 taking provisional pole. Hamilton followed shortly after, putting down a time of 1:15:4, taking over provisional pole from his teammate. With over half a second between Hamilton and Verstappen, Max would have to put down an amazing lap to get pole. Perez had put down the fourth time, meaning that if the session would be over now, the two Mercedeses would lock out the front row, followed by the two Red Bulls on P3 and P4. But it wasn’t over yet.
With approximately two and half minutes to go, the four top cars went out on track again. Verstappen quickly left his garage, trying to get past a couple of cars, but unfortunately got stuck behind Hamilton. The Brit left the pitlane at the slowest possible pace, and as there was no room for Verstappen to get past him, the Dutchman had to wait, while the seconds were counting down. Hamilton gave no room, and both Verstappen and Perez were stuck behind him. With only 10 seconds to go until the checkered flag would be waved, Hamilton picked up speed and rushed over the start-finish line, going for one last fast lap. Verstappen followed, crossing the finish line with only 1 second on the clock. The Dutchman speeded down the track to put down another time, hoping to be the fastest again and getting pole position. His team mate Perez wasn’t so fortunate and did not make it in time. He saw the checkered flag before crossing the start-finish line and could not put down another time, having to settle with the time that had now put him in fourth position on the starting grid. Both Verstappen and Hamilton made their way around the track, but they were both not able to improve their earlier set times.
All drivers saw the checkered flag, closing the start grid for the race of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton kept pole position after that amazing first lap, making it his 101st pole position of his F1-career. Bottas started next to him on P2, followed by Verstappen on P3 and Perez on P4. Behind the Mercedeses and Red Bulls were Gasly on P5, Norris P6, Leclerc P7, Ocon P8, Alonso P9 and the top 10 was closed by Vettel.
This battle in qualifying between Hamilton and Verstappen showed again how much the battle was on. Hamilton was hungry for points and retaking the leadership in the championship standings, Verstappen was out on revenge after the crash at Silverstone. These two alone would give us fans a great race to watch, but with 18 more drivers on the track, chances are high that there will be more to talk about after the race.
The Race...
The initial forecast for the Hungarian Grand Prix may have been for a dry, hot, race, but the small chance of rain has turned into what seems like a near certainty with only half an hour to go until lights out.
With just fifteen minutes until lights out, clouds moved in over the circuit and raindrops fell. Tents were brought on the track, covering the cars. It was not yet heavy enough to be declared an officially wet start, but the drivers were all starting the race on the intermediate tyres. The race will still get underway with a standing start as normal.
Despite the intense crash and DNF at the British Grand Prix, Max Verstappen was still leading the driver’s championship. With only 8 points between him and Lewis Hamilton, the battle is very much on.
Right before the formation lap, the rain intensified and the predictions now are that the race will start with a threat of light rain, intensifying over the first hour of the Grand Prix before lightening away again.
Hold onto your hats, this is going to be tense!
With the cars lined up on the grid, the countdown can begin. Hamilton and Bottas locked out the front row, followed by both Red Bulls on the second row, and behind them Gasly and Norris.
As soon as the lights switch off, the drivers hit the gas, hoping for a fast start. Both Hamilton, Verstappen and Norris had a great start. Verstappen passed Bottas, trying to get close to Hamilton. On the inside Norris got alongside the Finn and quickly overtook him. Perez has also managed to get past the Mercedes, who in the first 10 seconds of the race fell back four places.
A braking error of Valtteri Bottas then caused a lot of chaos, right before the cars went into turn one. The Finn hit Norris from behind, who lost control of his car and hit Verstappen. Just behind them, Bottas hit Sergio Perez, as the Mercedes lost one of its front wheels and was thus uncontrollable. An Alpha Tauri runs wide to avoid the chaos. At that same moment, just behind this first group, Lance Stroll goes over the curbs and runs into Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari. The two cars slid over the track, hitting Daniel Ricciardo’s car who spun around as well.
Apart from Bottas’ Mercedes, all other cars were able to somewhat continue the race and got away from that first corner. Very shortly after the incidents, both Leclerc and Perez had to retire because the damage on the car was too severe.
A red flag follows, allowing the marshalls to clean up all the debris on the track. During this red flag, camera’s get close to the cars and the real damage of that turn 1 chaos is shown. Front wings are being replaced, but some real damage is also done to the side of the cars or the floors, and that cannot be repaired that easily.
Mechanics worked as hard as they could, but unfortunately for the McLaren team, they had to retire Lando Norris’ car, as it was too damaged to be fixed on time.
After approximately half an hour the race was restarted. All cars rolled out of the pits on intermediates for another formation lap, as the race would be restarted with a normal, standing start. The track had dried up pretty much everywhere during the red flag, so it was only a matter of time before the drivers would pit for slick tyres. George Russell announced the same over the board radio; it wouldn’t take long until everybody would pit to change tyres.
And indeed, the cars entered the pit lane, all cars except for one, car 44 - Lewis Hamilton. The Brit was the only one to line up on the grid. All other cars that were still in the race dove into the pits, changed for slicks and lined up at the end of the pitlane for the restart.
While the grandstands and everybody at home was looking at a very unique picture of having only one car on the grid, the lights switched on again and it was “lights out and away we go” for Lewis Hamilton only.
The Brit had to get as far ahead as possible of the rest of the field, otherwise he was going to lose out big time.
He raced flat out towards turn 1, as the other drivers joined him as soon as the pitlane exit was open. First one to leave the pits was George Russell, followed by the Alpine of Esteban Ocon, then Sebastian Vettel and then Nicholas Latifi. After a strange restart, we now saw a Williams running in second position, and the other one in fifth... Could this race get even more spectacular?
“Am I last?” -Lewis Hamilton
Unfortunately for all the GR63-fans, the young Brit fell back some places as he was told to give back position to the cars he had undertaken when he made his pit stop.
On lap 4, the first lap after the restart, Lewis Hamilton dove into the pits to change for slicks and Esteban Ocon took the lead of the race. All the other cars past the pitlane exit before Hamilton rejoined the race, leaving the seven time World Champion in last position.
“Am I last?” Hamilton asked his team when he’s back on track. The team confirmed and told their driver that he would easily be the fastest car out on the track, as he escaped all the turn 1 chaos, and most of the other cars were damaged. The Brit lowered his head and went into full racing mode, trying to make his way through the field and get as many points as possible.
Nikita Mazepin also had to retire his car after the restart, leaving only 14 cars in the race. The Haas driver had a collision with Kimi Raikkönen in the pitlane, for which the Alfa Romeo driver would later get a 10-second time penalty. The Haas was too damaged to continue the race, bringing the field back to 14.
“If you need to compromise my race to help Nicky, I’ll do it. Prioritise Nicky.” -George Russell
On lap 9, Nicholas Latifi in the Williams, was still running in third, his team mate Russell in seventh. The young British driver however was willing to give up his race, to make sure Latifi would finish in the points, and maybe even on a podium.
“If you need to compromise my race to help Nicky, I’ll do it. Prioritise Nicky,” he told his engineers over the radio. A board radio that we won’t forget soon, showing us how much of a teamplayer Russell is.
By lap 10, Hamilton passed Giovinazzi and went on to attack Gasly. The French driver defended for a few laps, keepin the Mercedes behind him.
In lap 14, Max Verstappen closed in on Mick Schumacher, trying to overtake the rookie driver. The Dutchman went slightly wide in turn 1, and had to let the German go front, but immediately attacked again in turn 2. With a light touch of wheels, the Red Bull got past the Haas as they got out of turn 3 and immediately got his elbows out to defend his position. The Dutchman climbed to P10. Just behind them, Hamilton was still battling Gasly for P12, which the Alpha Tauri soon had to give up to the Mercedes.
In lap 20, Hamilton dove into the pits again. Setting fastest lap every time, what would be Mercedes’ strategy? They switched to hard tyres. Hamilton rejoined the track in P12, behind Mick Schumacher. The following lap, both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, P8 and P9 respectively, also pitted to change to hards. The Red Bull team wanted to get a bit of track position and wanted to avoid that Mercedes would undercut them, that’s why Max was called into the pits.
Upon exiting the pitlane, Verstappen was behind Ricciardo, and Hamilton was speeding down the start-finish straight, closing in on the duo.
Running at a way higher speed, Hamilton got past Verstappen before turn 1, took the outside line and managed to overtake Ricciardo as well. Two cars at once, the undercut had definitely worked.
In the following laps, more drivers pitted for hards. Carlos Sainz was also called into the pits on lap 22, but overruled his team. “No no, I have a lot of pace,” he told them and stayed out. The Spanish driver climbed to P3 in the following 10 laps, before he needed to pit. He rejoined in P4, only losing one place on the grid.
Onlap 34, Daniel Ricciardo was on the tail of Schumacher’s Haas. He overtook the German on the inside, and right away Verstappen, who was still running behind Ricciardo, pulled the “Excuse me, I’m with him” move on Schumacher, overtaking the rookie and staying close behind Ricciardo.
By lap 36, Hamilton had his eyes on Sainz, who was still running in fourth, behind Alonso, Vettel and Alpine. The German driver was called into the pits, and thus Alpine saw their cars running in first and second for the first time this season. Sebastian Vettel rejoined in P3, and immediately Alpine told Ocon to box. He came out back on track right ahead of Vettel and immediately went in defending-mode. The German had a good outlap after his pitstop, but not good enough to get ahead of Ocon and, even though he tried, Ocon defended his second place well. Alonso had yet to stop, but with both Vettel and Ocon on fresh tyres, the race was on until the checkered flag. Vettel was the whole lap on Ocon’s tail, having warmer tyres, but the young Frenchman defended his place on the track well and didn’t give the German the space to overtake.
On lap 43, Hamilton started to complain about his tyres. The Brit was currently P4, after a pitstop of Alonso who was now running behind him. In front of the Mercedes was Carlos Sainz in his Ferrari defending his place. Over the board radio the Spaniard informed his team that Hamilton will probably pit again, due to the issues with the tyres.
And indeed, on lap 48 the Mercedes dove into the pits again and switched to mediums. He came back on track on mediums, and his engineer told him over the radio that it would be full on racing from that moment on. “It’s hammer time until the end,” he said.
"100%. Undoubtedly, crucial...If he'd have got past him on the first lap, like he got past Carlos [Sainz, ahead of Alonso in third] on the first time, I'm sure Lewis would have been there.” -Alan Permane, Alpine Sporting Director
“Fernando gave me hell out there...It was awesome racing, pretty on edge at least once but great racing.” -Lewis Hamilton
A couple of laps later we are shown an amazing battle between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. With his teammate leading the race, the 40 year old Spanish driver did everything in his power to keep the Mercedes behind him. Hamilton tried to overtake Alsonso at every possible place, but the Alpine-driver managed to keep him behind for 11 whole laps. During those 11 long laps, which probably seemed an eternity for both drivers, Alonso averted every attack from the Brit, eliminating Hamilton’s chances of eventually catching Ocon and thus helped his teammate to get to the podium.
Alan Permane, Alpine’s sporting director, acknowledged Alonso' work holding Hamilton up was crucial as the Spaniard defended brilliantly, in particular in the fast run up to Turns 4 and 5, until a lock-up in Turn 1 allowed Hamilton past.
"100%. Undoubtedly, crucial," said Permane. "If he'd have got past him on the first lap, like he got past Carlos [Sainz, ahead of Alonso in third] on the first time, I'm sure Lewis would have been there.”
Hamilton first moved to within a second of Alonso on lap 54, but he didn’t make the pass until Turn 1 on lap 65. He then quickly passed Carlos Sainz for third place on track.
“Fernando gave me hell out there,” said Hamilton after the race. “It was awesome racing, pretty on edge at least once but great racing.”
“Did you see he just moved over on me man…come on”. “At that speed, it’s so dangerous." -Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton’s reference to being on edge refers to the moment on lap 63 when, having challenged Alonso around the outside of the Turn 2 left-hander and got a run on him out of the flat-out Turn 3, they made contact approaching Turn 4.
Alonso, as he had done several times before, took a defensive mid-track line on the approach to the corner and Hamilton went to his right approaching the fast left-hand. But on lap 63, Alonso edged over on Hamilton, with his rear-right tyre rubbing Hamilton’s front-left.
As Hamilton still had more than the regulated car’s width, there was no problem with Alonso’s move but the Mercedes driver complained over the radio that “Did you see he just moved over on me man…come on”. He later added “at that speed, it’s so dangerous”.
Hamilton finally made the pass on lap 65 when Alonso went deep into Turn 1. The Mercedes driver was able to cover Alonso’s attempt to re-pass him at Turn 2 and then pulled away for the rest of the race.
“Honestly, I thought that that was coming much earlier than what it did,” Alonso said. “He was close. I think that Turn 4 was the closest, that high speed.
“Turn 2 we had some action and tried to give enough respect but not too much space, if not he would pass. But honestly, I think that Lewis was making small mistakes in the last two corners, that’s my honest opinion because he had so much pace so you could not take eight laps to pass with that pace advantage.
“In fact, after changing a few lines he could pass Carlos immediately one lap after, so it was not difficult to pass in my opinion but he took four or five laps to figure it out.”
Right after the Mercedes passed the Ferrari, Sainz’ frustration was shown over the radio. Hamilton accelerated and was running just over 5 seconds behind, setting one fastest lap after another. As a reply on that, Gasly dove into the pits in lap 69 and switched to a new set of tyres, trying to steal that point from Mercedes.
Alonso’s amazing defense led to a victory for his teammate. After a 70 laps long race that had a very chaotic start, it was Esteban Ocon who saw the checkered flag first, getting his maiden win in Hungary. Shortly after him, Sebastian Vettel crossed the finish line, and Hamilton followed, completing the podium.
Pierre Gasly did set the fastest lap after his pitstop, taking away that extra point from Hamilton.
The 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix will be remembered for a long time. There was chaos in Turn 1 in the first lap, taking out a lot of drivers, Ocon had his first ever win in Formula One, Williams scored their first points since 2019, as both Latifi and Russell scored points end in the points and the standings in both the Drivers and Constructors Championships changed.
Lewis Hamilton took the lead again in the Drivers Championship, as Max Verstappen finished surprisingly 10, scoring a point anyway. As Red Bull later said, the Dutchman raced with only half a car after the crash, and pictures later showed indeed that Max was missing half of his floor, which made the car very difficult to drive.
Mercedes also took over the lead in the Constructors Championship from Red Bull, after two not very successful races for the team from Austria.
After the race both Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll received a five-place grid penalty for their actions in lap 1 which caused the crash.
Sebastian Vettel was under investigation, because Aston Martin couldn’t provide enough fuel to the race officials, and on Monday it was announced that he lost his second-place finish and was disqualified.
Under the technical regulations, competitors must ensure that a 1.0 litre sample of fuel may be taken from the car at any time during the event – however it was only possible to take 0.3 litres from Vettel’s Aston Martin after Sunday’s race.
The decision means that Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton inherited second place, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz classified as the final podium finisher in third.
The rest of the top 10 behind Vettel also inherited a place each, with Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen promoted from P11 into the final points paying position of P10.
The result also means Hamilton extends his title lead over Max Verstappen by a further two points after picking up 18 points to Verstappen’s two.
A tumultuous race right before the summer break. One that we won’t forget soon. The drivers will take some time off to relax and prepare for the second part of the season, and we will start counting down until the season continues at the Belgian Grand Prix during the last weekend of August.
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