The Hungaroring has delivered some cracking races
in its illustrious history but few were as thrilling as this year’s edition, as
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen had a race-long ding-dong battle for the lead,
with Mercedes playing a strategy masterstroke and Hamilton doing his bit by
brilliantly hunting down the Red Bull driver to clinch a sensational victory.
Hamilton has been the class of the field in
this era of F1, while Verstappen has emerged as the driver to take his mantel.
As Red Bull have closed the gap to Mercedes this year, the chances of the duo
fighting wheel-to-wheel have increased and in Hungary, we were treated to the
kind of battle for the lead that we expect to see much more of in the future.
Verstappen led away from pole position, but
Hamilton made things exciting bypassing Valtteri Bottas at Turn 2 before
setting off in pursuit of the Dutchman. Red Bull looked to have nailed the
strategy when they pitted Verstappen six laps before Hamilton and ended up with
a six-second lead, with both drivers running the hard tyres. But then things
got exciting.
The Briton chased down Verstappen, who was forced
to stay out because had he reacted to the stop, he would have rejoined behind
in second. That meant he had to make his hard tyres last – but it was too tall
an order and with three laps to go, Hamilton made the pass to take the lead,
going on to take his seventh Hungarian GP win.
Verstappen was forced to pit, having run out of
tyres, and came back out in second. He promptly pumped in the fastest lap, to
get the extra bonus point, and crossed the line 17.7s adrift with Sebastian
Vettel passing Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc late on for third, but he was
a staggering 61.4s down on the race winner.
Carlos Sainz continued his sensational run of
form with a brilliant fifth for McLaren, albeit it one lap down, ahead of Red
Bull's Pierre Gasly and Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen. Bottas, who was forced to
pit early on for a new nose after contact with Hamilton and Leclerc, recovered
to eighth, with McLaren's Lando Norris and Toro Rosso's Alexander Albon
completing the top 10.
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