Verstappen Storms To Hungarian GP Victory As Ferrari Throws Away Points

Max Verstappen stole the show at the Hungarian Grand Prix as he charged his way all the way from tenth on the grid to the top step of the podium. Red Bull deployed a very straight forward and perfect strategy to give Verstappen all that he needed to win the race. Using a reverse strategy of Verstappen, Hamilton climbed from P7 on the grid up to second place, as George Russel fell from pole to third.

While Mercedes and Red Bull delivered good strategies, to the surprise of no one, Scuderia Ferrari didn’t do the same. After starting Charles Leclerc on a set of medium tires and changed it to another set of mediums on his first stop, Ferrari pulled the plug for his second stop too early and pitted him for a set of hard tyres, which proved to be very slow. Eventually Leclerc had to pit again for a new set of softs, and he couldn’t gain any time on them, finishing the race in P6. Carlos Sainz couldn’t hold the charge of Hamilton and Verstappen either, and failed to finish on the podium despite starting second. Sergio Perez made steady improvement and finished P5, in what was a recovery drive after qualifying P11.

Lando Norris did well in the initial stages of the race to retain P4, but later fell behind the top 3 teams as he lacked pace on the hard compound tyres. Daniel Ricciardo also made some great moves to sit behind Norris for a while, but fell further behind on hard tires too, ultimately finished P13 on the road. Ricciardo also received a 5-second penalty for crashing into Stroll as the Canadian tried to make a move down the outside, which dropped him down to P15. The two Alpines finished eighth and ninth ahead of the two Aston Martins. Valtteri Bottas was the only driver to retire from the race, as he lost power just a couple of laps before the end, raising added questions about the reliability of Ferrari’s F1 engine.

What does this mean for the championship?

With Red Bull qualifying P10 & P11, and Ferrari qualifying P2 & P3, it was anticipated that Ferrari & Leclerc will close down the gap up front. However, with its strange strategy calls, the Ferrari drivers could only finish fourth and sixth, while Red Bull drivers finished first and fifth. This means that Verstappen is now 80 points clear at the top of the table, even if Leclerc wins all of the remaining races and Verstappen finishes second, the Red Bull driver would still win the championship. Given Ferrari’s current form, it is difficult to imagine them covering this gap and mounting any sort of title challenge. In fact, Sergio Perez is only 5 points behind Leclerc, and Red Bull could very well have its drivers 1-2 in the championship.

In the constructors championship, Mercedes have gained a considerable amount of points over Ferrari in the last 2 races, and are now only 30 points behind the Italian team. Should Mercedes continue this form, it could find itself sitting P2 in the constructors championship in no time. While this is still disappointing for the outfit that has won the last 8 constructors titles in a row, Mercedes will still be happy with that considering its pace deficit at the start of the season.