F1 2020: Lewis Hamilton wins Hungary Grand Prix

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a peerless run to his eighth Hungarian Grand Prix victory, winning out over the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, as he tied with Michael Schumacher’s record for the most number of wins at a single venue.

 

Starting from pole, Hamilton quickly surged into a comfortable lead in the early laps, before managing his pace over his rivals in the encounter at the Hungaroring, eventually taking the flag 8.7s ahead of Verstappen to seal his third win in a row at this race.

 

Verstappen himself overcame a poor qualifying that saw him start P7, and then an embarrassing crash into the Turn 12 wall on his lap to the grid that required some urgent repairs, to claim P2, the Dutchman holding off an attack by third-place Valtteri Bottas in the final stages of the race.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll couldn’t convert his P3 grid position into the team’s first podium of the year as he came home a distant fourth. A late pass from Red Bull’s Alex Albon on the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel gave Albon – who started 13th – P5, although Red Bull was summoned to the stewards after the race for allegedly drying Albon’s grid spot ahead of the race start. Vettel held off the second Racing Point of Sergio Perez in the final laps of the race, as the Mexican finished seventh, having started fourth, while Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo made a monster 42-lap stint on mediums work to take eighth.

 

With the track greasy ahead of the race start but the rain had stopped falling, an inspired strategy from Haas helped Kevin Magnussen take the team’s first points of the year, with Magnussen and Romain Grosjean pitting for slicks at the end of the formation lap as their rivals started on intermediates on the drying track, with the Dane eventually taking P9 after a fine race. McLaren’s Carlos Sainz rounded out the top 10, thanks to a late-race pass on the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who ended up 11th.

F1 2019: Lewis Hamilton wins Hungary Grand Prix

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.

F1 2018: Lewis Hamilton wins Hungary Grand Prix

Even as he was recording his 77th pole position, there were few who thought that the British driver would maintain that position 24 hours later. But a nerve display from Ferrari allowed Hamilton to fairly cruise to his 67th win, sharing the podium with chief rival Sebastian Vettel and team mate Kimi Raikkonen.

It had looked set to be a Mercedes one-two with six laps left to go. But Vettel used DRS to sweep past Valtteri Bottas into Turn 1. When the Finn tried to fight back into Turn 2, he locked up and clipped Vettel. The German continued, pulling Raikkonen through with him, as Bottas dropped to fourth with a damaged front wing.

Three laps later, Bottas hit Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull as the Australian tried to make a move into Turn 1 to mark a messy end of the race for the Finn, who ended up in fifth – a position he retained even with the 10-second time penalty he received post-race for his role in the incident. Ricciardo, on the other hand, will have been delighted to finish fourth, having started the race down in P12.

Pierre Gasly drove a great Grand Prix to finish in sixth for Toro Rosso, comfortably leading home Kevin Magnussen in the Haas, while Fernando Alonso gave McLaren something to smile about, coming home P8. The Renault of Carlos Sainz and the Haas of Romain Grosjean rounded out the top 10. Up at the front though, it was Hamilton who claimed his sixth Hungarian Grand Prix victory, which puts the Hungaroring joint with Montreal’s Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve as the British driver’s top hunting ground on the F1 calendar.

Sebastian Vettel wins Hungary Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel led team mate Kimi Raikkonen home for a Ferrari one-two in Formula 1 Pirelli Magyar Nagydij 2017. With Mercedes Lewis Hamilton finishing fourth, it means Vettel extends his championship lead to 14 points heading into the summer break.

On a day when the Silver Arrows had no answer to the Scuderia, despite Vettel complaining of steering issues, Valtteri Bottas took third ahead of Hamilton, just in front of a recovering Max Verstappen, who had been penalized 10 seconds for taking his Red Bull team mate Daniel Ricciardo out of the race on the opening lap. Fernando Alonso secured his and McLaren’s best result of the year in sixth, winning a race-long battle with fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz in the Toro Rosso. Force India again got both cars in the points, with Sergio Perez beating team mate Esteban Ocon to eighth place, whilst Stoffel Vandoorne rounded out the top ten in the second McLaren.

Vettel and Raikkonen finished less than a second apart after 70 laps of the Hungaroring, but the reds certainly had to work much harder than they anticipated for their 43 points. In the opening stages they were very much in command, as Vettel sprinted away and took Raikkonen with him, and Hamilton dropped behind team mate Bottas and Verstappen at the start. But gradually Raikkonen began to erode Vettel lead as the German started complaining of a steering problem, and when Hamilton’s car came alive on the soft Pirelli tyres in the second stint, Mercedes asked Bottas to let the Briton by.

The result puts Vettel further ahead again in the title chase with 202 points to Hamilton’s 188 and Bottas 169, while Raikkonen closes on Ricciardo 117 with 116. Daniil Kvyat was 11th in the other Toro Rosso, four-tenths ahead of Jolyon Palmer who had run 10th early on before being instructed to let faster Renault team mate Nico Hulkenberg by. The German was fighting for points when he was eased off-track in Turn 2 by Kevin Magnussen (who received a five second penalty as a result), but his R.S.17 malfunctioned right near the end and he was instructed to retire.

That left Magnussen 13th from Lance Stroll who was Williams’ sole finisher after the returning Paul di Resta drove a smooth and incident-free race battling with the Saubers until he too was told to stop near the end due to an oil leak. Pascal Wehrlein beat Sauber team mate Marcus Ericsson for 16th, as Romain Grosjean joined Hulkenberg, di Resta and Ricciardo in retirement when an improperly fastened wheel obliged Haas to tell him to stop.