Ocon holds Vettel back to take first F1 win

Esteban Ocon sensationally defeated Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton to win the 2021 Hungarian Formula 1 Grand Prix, which was interrupted by a red flag triggered by two pile-ups at Turn 1.

The first crash at Turn 1 was caused by Valtteri Bottas, whose mistake in slipping into Lando Norris’ rear end affected both Red Bull cars and Max Verstappen fought back to eventually finish the race in 10th place.

At the first start, Hamilton and Verstappen drove good escapes on the damp track after it had rained steadily in the 30 minutes before the start, causing all the cars to line up on Inters, while Bottas fell several places behind when leaving the line.

But the Finn was to get worse when he misjudged his braking for the first corner after being overtaken by Sergio Perez and Lando Norris, blocking Bottas and sliding straight into the rear of the McLaren.

This had two effects: Norris was in Verstappen’s right side, the right front wheel of the Red Bull somehow stayed on, while Bottas, whose left front was broken, continued to slide and rattled on the outside in Perez. with all four sent to the runoff after turn 1.

Bottas retreated there while Verstappen led Norris and Perez away, around the debris of a second shunt at Turn 1, triggered by the runaway Lance Stroll walking onto the grass on the inside of the right-hand turn and then into Charles Leclerc penetrated, who should move up to second place behind Hamilton.

Stroll’s mistake broke his left front against the Ferrari, which in turn was beaten wide and hit Daniel Ricciardo, who had contested Leclerc’s outside position – the Australian sent himself to the back of the reduced field.

The debris field in Turn 1 initially led to a safety car, in which Red Bull sent Verstappen into the pits, while Esteban Ocon benefited most from the chaos in second behind Hamilton and in front of Sebastian Vettel.

Verstappen lost his right bargeboard when exiting the pits, just before the race was stopped to clear the track and because Perez, whose car was smoking heavily from Bottas, had stopped on the short straight between turns 11 and 12 to Beginning of the last sector.

The field returned to the pits where Red Bull was working to fix Verstappen’s car and McLaren had to give up Norris due to the damage he had sustained from Bottas.

After a delay of almost 30 minutes, Hamilton Ocon, Vettel, Carlos Sainz, Yuki Tsunoda and Nicholas Latifi were the first six to return to the grid for a second standing start, where Verstappen would have been 13th.

But under almost comical circumstances, Hamilton was the only rider who didn’t make it at the end of the second warm-up lap – the third lap of the race of 70 years – and he took the standing start alone while everyone else came to swap their inter-medium-slick -Tires, as the track dried out under sunny skies during the red flag.

Hamilton shot duly solo at Turn 1, where Ocon was remarkably led out of the pit lane by George Russell, who had finished eighth under the red flag but had jumped into the pit queue thanks to Williams’ position at the end of the pit lane.

But when Russell approached Hamilton as the Mediums were proving to be much faster than the Inters on the quick-drying track, he was ordered to return the positions he had gained in the pit lane, which meant that Ocon took a clear lead when Hamilton stopped for Mediums at the end of the fourth lap – the first full race lap in the race.

Over the next five laps, the Alpine driver built a lead of 1.4 seconds over Vettel, while Latifi kept the field behind in third place as Verstappen battled Pierre Gasly and Antonio Giovinazzi on the edge of the top 10 – with Hamilton being the The fight started after the re-entry as 14th and last after his stop.

Ocon continued to run just ahead of Vettel, and the battle for the top soon turned into a two-driver competition as Latifi kept falling.

Back in the field, Verstappen worked his way ahead of Gasly and then chased Schumacher for several laps around the 10 to pass Giovinazzi and then Gasly.

On lap 14, Verstappen attacked Schumacher in Turn 1, but had to go far at the exit, and then the Red Bull went around the long exit to the left of Turn 2 and came to the exit in front, where the two cars briefly touched when They were doing side-on racing towards the fast right side of Turn 3.

Five laps later, with Ocon just over a second ahead of Vettel, Mercedes Hamilton called in behind Gasly in eleventh place and switched from the middle to the hard.

His sensational off-lap pace meant he was jumping in front of Verstappen and Ricciardo, who had just been running down the street when they came in to cover Hamilton on the next lap.

Several rivals, including Russell, pitted soon after, which helped Hamilton’s way to the top, but he continued to go much faster than the others, doing a number of fastest laps between Tours 20 and 30.

During this part of the race, Ocon was put under heavy pressure by Vettel before he improved his lead again and reached 2.3 seconds at halftime.

Since Verstappen got stuck behind Ricciardo when they caught the drivers who made the first stop on the green flag – including Schumacher again – Hamilton roared clearly and overtook Latifi shortly after the Williams pitted from third place on lap 23.

Hamilton then stormed towards Tsunoda, who had passed Latifi by stopping a lap earlier, and overtook the AlphaTauri around the outside of fast left turn 4 on lap 32.

When Hamilton was in fifth, Ferrari then pitted with Sainz, who asked to be left out when Tsunoda and Latifi came in earlier so he could run in clear air which he carved into the large gap behind Vettel.

This ended Hamilton’s attack when Vettel was asked in lap 36 to switch from Medium to Hards.

A 3.3 second stop thanks to a slow left tail swap meant that when Ocon ran hard at the end of the next lap, although Vettel stormed on his final lap as he heated the white-walled rubber couldn’t come next the Alpine that came out of the pits and drove into Turn 1.

Ocon then drove around a second ahead of Vettel again in the next phase of the race, but Sainz and Hamilton – who soon complained about the condition of his tires – were soon just six seconds behind the lead when they were in the low 1:21 minutes The leaders drove laps with high 1m21s and low 1m22s.

Fernando Alonso drove through for the first time when the two leaders pitted, but he came at the end of 40.

The race then calmed down for a while when Hamilton was hindered behind Sainz and Ocon retained control in front of Vettel – apart from a moment at the beginning of lap 48 when Vettel came close to the rear of the Alpine when Ocon lapped Antonio Giovinazzi at Curve 1.

On the previous lap, Mercedes had called Hamilton for a second stop with a green flag, set him back to the mean values ​​and prepared an exciting attack for the last third of the race, as he was 22.6 seconds behind Ocon.

The world champion – similar to the one here to win against Verstappen in 2019 – set a high pace when he got back in behind Alonso in clear air and seven laps after his break-in was less than 10 seconds behind the lead and Alpin was right next to the second .

On the next tour, lap 55, Alonso lapped Kimi Raikkonen at Turn 1, which gave Hamilton the chance to attack around the outside of Turn 2, where Alonso aggressively held the inside line to stay in front, as well as Hamilton’s forays at Get Few Moments later 4.

The fight raged over the next 10 laps, with Hamilton attacking multiple times in similar circumstances on Turns 2 and 4, frustrated by Alonso’s fierce defense as his former teammate approached Sainz and then ran in the dirty air of the Ferrari.

However, on lap 65, Alonso’s defense collapsed when he re-latched his left front at Turn 1 and went deep, allowing Hamilton to run alongside the exit and then zoom past with DRS on the run to Turn 2.

Hamilton then immediately caught up with Sainz, who withstood the Mercedes driver’s first attack but couldn’t stop Hamilton from advancing to third place as they sped down the pit lane on lap 67 while lapping Ricciardo.

Alonso’s strong defense meant Hamilton only caught up with the leaders at the end, with Ocon ending his race-long attack ahead of Vettel and winning by 1.8 seconds while Hamilton was another 0.8 seconds behind.

Gasly finished sixth behind Sainz and Ocon after being let past Tsunoda, who was nearing the final third. Tsunoda then spun late at Turn 2, which meant he came home well behind his teammate.

Latifi and Russell scored Williams’ first points since 2019 in seventh and eighth, with the former getting closer to Latifi during the second stint after being stopped by Schumacher after his only green flag stop.

Russell also ended up defying Verstappen’s attentions as the Red Bull finished just 1.1 seconds off 10th after pitting 30 laps to go to hold their own against Ricciardo, who has held the lead since then her unsuccessful attempt to stop Hamilton’s undercut.

With a bold pull around the outside of Turn 4, Verstappen overtook Ricciardo with 10 laps remaining and set out to close Russell to the finish.

Raikkonen received a 10s time penalty for being released in Nikita Mazepin’s path as the field pounded in the second lead-up lap, eliminated by the chaos in lap 1.

Schumacher crossed the finish line in 13th ahead of Giovinazzi, who was also punished with 10, because of excessive speed in the pit lane.