That’s right. Red Bull just broke McLaren’s record by winning twelve races in a row, nine of which were won by Max Verstappen. Super Max’s results are undeniable. Verstappen’s combination of steely nerve and lightening quick reflex’s coupled with the engineers and pit crews expertise results in twelve consecutive victories this year along with unparalleled dominance over the last two seasons. This year, with his 44th career victory, Verstappen is on pace to overtake Alain Prost (51 victories) and possibly tie with Sebastian Vettel (53 victories). Every week Verstappen races, history is made. Yet, watching qualification, it was not a foregone conclusion that a Red Bull would top the podium this week. Or was it?
A New Qualification Format
This week’s race featured a new format for qualification. Teams were required to race only hard tires in Q1, medium tires in Q2 and soft tires in Q3. This experiment is meant to see if teams can travel with less tires and to even the playing field for race day. At first glance, the experiment appeared to have achieved its goals. George Russell’s failure to move on to Q2 was the first surprise. Teams started to figure out that if you changed to a new tire later in your run, your car would have a better time. Mercedes held Russell back too long. He couldn’t get a good run with all the traffic in front of him and he started 18th on the grid. Alpha Tauri fared better with Daniel Ricciardo’s run being enough to get them into Q2 for the first time this year. Ricciardo is back, replacing the disappointing rookie Nyck DeVries. The next big surprise was Carlos Sainz’s performance. He barely missed Q3 by mere tenths of a second. Finally, Sergio Perez made it back to Q3 for the first time in five weeks though he only started ninth. However, the cherry on top was a front row lockout by Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. It was the first time Hamilton earned pole since Abu Dhabi in 2021. The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was also the last time Verstappen and Hamilton were on the front row.
Hamilton’s Disappointing Start
At the start of the race, Verstappen launched forward searching for a favorable line and found it as he and Hamilton sped towards turn one. After Verstappen was away as the new race leader, Oscar Piastri came along side of Hamilton at the exit of turn one with Lando Norris searching for a hole in traffic. Piastri pushed passed Hamilton, and Norris wheeled to the outside of Hamilton as they rounded into turn two. Norris held his line and also overtook Hamilton rather easily. McLaren was two and three, and lap one was barely underway!
Alpine’s Disaster
Zhou Guanyu’s Alpha had a such a slow start that his teammate Valteri Bottas sped around the outside of his teammate’s car, while Sergio Perez followed suit but on Guanyu’s inside lane. Nico Hulkenburg followed Perez’s line and also sped around Guanyu. Eventually both Alpine’s and Daniel Ricciardo sped around Guanyu as the grid approached the apex of turn one. Both Alpines were side by side, with Ricciardo behind Esteban Ocon and Guanyu behind Ricciardo. As the drivers slammed on the brakes into turn one, Guanyu was a bit late and hit Ricciardo who tapped Ocon enough for him to careen into his teammate, Pierre Gasly effectively taking them both out of the race. This is the second race in a row where both Alpines failed to finish the race.
Strategy
The Hungarian Grand Prix is a 70 lap, 2.7-mile race track with 14 turns. As Martin Brundle put it, this is a busy racetrack. It is also an older racetrack. A close inspection of the tarmac reveals that it is quite weathered. A grainy track, coupled with the heat means the teams must execute a winning tire strategy. Carlos Sainz was the only driver on the grid to start with softs. It was a great starting move. He was 11th and quickly moved up to sixth position behind his teammate by lap two. Sainz was running so fast, Ferrari should have switched him and Leclerc and let Sainz have a go at Hamilton who was running fourth at the time. Ferrari failed to take advantage of the opportunity. Ferrari’s mistakes continued to compound when Leclerc not only sped down pit lane, but his first pit stop took nine seconds due to stuck wheel gun. Ferrari can’t seem to get out of their own way.
The cream always rises to the top. The best teams on the grid did their homework. The drivers for Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Aston Martin all finished in the top ten. Even though Perez was voted driver of the day, George Russell’s performance was superb. Russell started 18th. He threaded thru the grid and managed his tires so well he was third place by lap 22. He ended up finishing sixth overall. Finally, Alpha Tauri’s move to bring Daniel Ricciardo back seems to have paid off as he was their top finisher at P13. At one point in the race Ricciardo was running in last place, and after only 11 laps of life on his tires, Alpha Tauri ordered him to box. It was a puzzling move, but it paid off as he worked his way back to 13th place.
Overall, it was a great race. There was a fair amount of overtaking throughout the race. Qualification did not necessarily predict the outcome of the race, thus making the race much more interesting. McLaren is storming back to relevance as Lando Norris found himself finishing P2 for the second week in a row. With both drivers back on the podium, Red Bull’s dominance cannot be understated. Sergio Perez has achieved six podium finishes this year. Verstappen’s 33 second lead at the finish line tells the whole grid they have more work to do to catch Red Bull. One more race before the summer break! See you in Belgium.
