Eight talking points from a sensational Hungarian GP

Bottas triggers first-corner chaos

Pre-race rain was the catalyst for drama as everyone chose intermediate Pirelli tyres for the start – but Valtteri Bottas was the trigger. The Finn made an awful getaway from second on the grid, then completely missed his braking point to slam into the back of the fast-starting Lando Norris, whose McLaren slid into Verstappen’s Red Bull. Bottas’s Mercedes-AMG then clobbered Sergio Pérez in the second Red Bull, ruining the championship-leading team’s race in one calamitous moment. Pérez was out, Verstappen’s car was severely damaged and  a gutted Norris also headed for an early bath, his record of scoring in every round this year well and truly spoilt. Bottas earned a five-place grid penalty for the next race at Spa for his trouble and knew he had no defence. He’s cutting a sorry figure right now as his five-year Mercedes-AMG stint surely heads for final closure.

Stroll lances Leclerc

But he wasn’t the only one to make a mess of Turn 1. Lance Stroll also missed his braking point, the Canadian aiming his Aston Martin over the inside kerb but without the control to stop it assaulting Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, with Daniel Ricciardo also tapped into a helpless spin. Leclerc and Stroll were done for the day, with the hapless Stroll also earning himself a grid penalty for the next race.

Hamilton’s lonely restart

The scattering of debris led to an inevitable red flag interruption and when the mess was cleared it was Hamilton, who had kept ahead of trouble with a fine start from pole position, that led the field around for the restart. Then every one of his rivals dived into the pits to switch to slick tyres on a clearly fast-drying track, leaving the bizarre sight of the lone Mercedes lining up on the grid and blasting away for Turn 1 in total isolation.

Immediately Hamilton knew he and the team had made the wrong call – and it cost them the race. He pitted at the end of the restart lap, leaving Ocon ahead of Vettel at the sharp end. Quite why someone on the Mercedes pit wall didn’t make the same call as every one of their rivals is a head scratcher. But an already explosive grand prix was now set up to become a proper classic we’ll remember for years.

Ocon magnificent as Alpine peaks

When Alpine recently confirmed Ocon had been re-signed for two more years there was mild surprise in some corners, given the general disappointment of the team’s season up to this point. Ocon hasn’t been terrible – far from it – but there was a feeling pre-season that a driver who had once looked set for a prized Mercedes seat really needed to put away his aging team-mate Fernando Alonso in the two-time champion’s comeback season – and quite simply, he really hasn’t managed to do so. But as Bottas pulled the pin on the frontrunners in Hungary and Stroll wiped out Leclerc’s Ferrari, the path was clear for Ocon to slip up the order and make his mark, with Vettel following on the same line.

The Aston Martin driver had made a sluggish getaway, but it turned out to be the making of his race as it gained him time to pick the right line through the Turn 1 mess. Now he got his head down and with Hamilton’s tyre-call clanger and driving an Aston Martin he felt was definitely faster than the Alpine, Vettel took aim for the victory. He chased Ocon hard for the remainder of the race, getting close to a move on a number of occasions. That he couldn’t land a blow says much about this current generation of F1 car, a fair bit about the notoriously tricky Hungaroring – but mostly a great deal about Ocon. Esteban was pretty much flawless on Sunday, counting down the laps with a serenity that made him a deserving grand prix winner. The first one is always so sweet.

Hamilton vs. Alonso rolls back the years

But as Ocon acknowledged, he owed his old team-mate a debt of gratitude for keeping that hellhound Hamilton off his trail. Lewis and Mercedes quickly recognised the tall task their mistake had left them as they dropped to the back of the depleted field. An early change to hard tyres gave Hamilton the clean air he needed to lap at decent pace, allowing him to undercut Ricciardo and Verstappen when they stopped, and he chiselled away at the wall of rivals ahead of him to rise to fourth behind Carlos Sainz Jr.’s Ferrari. Then, as expected, he stopped again for a new set of mediums on lap 47, leaving him 23 laps to put in one of his famous and audacious comebacks – only for an old foe to scupper his victory chances.

The stop had dropped him to fifth, behind Alonso – and the man with whom he clashed so famously in his rookie year at McLaren in 2007, in a feud that really caught fire here in Budapest, now once again made life difficult. It was a glorious duel and a lovely throwback to their past battles, as Hamilton tried everything to pass the Alpine. Alonso, who scored his first F1 win at this circuit with the same team way back in 2003, put in a fantastic display of defensive driving. Did he overstep the mark on occasion? Hamilton thought so. But the Spaniard, who turned 40 over the Hungarian GP weekend, never was a pushover and remains the canny warrior he has always been. Clever car placement held up Hamilton for 10 laps. The Mercedes did finally found a way past and then Hamilton made a successful move on a tyre-compromised Sainz for third, but it was too late for him to do anything about Vettel and Ocon. Still, the podium earned a “dizzy and fatigued” Hamilton, who suspects he’s suffering from long Covid, to return to the top of the championship for the first time since May as F1 heads into its August summer break.

Verstappen toils to a single point

Red Bull’s mechanics swarmed over Verstappen’s car during the red flag stoppage, patching it up as best they could to send him back out. The Dutchman drily mentioned that he’d been knocked out by a Mercedes for the second race in succession, but toiled away with a seriously compromised car to earn (what appeared to be) a single point in 10^th.

Double points for Williams

Sainz held off Alonso to finish fourth on the road, with AlphaTauri pair Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda in sixth and seventh – and Williams pair Nicholas Latifi and George Russell next up. Yes, both Williams drivers scored points, Russell welling up with emotion at finally breaking his team duck and showing the kind of merits that will appeal to Mercedes when he made it clear Williams should prioritise his team-mate, Latifi having emerged in a remarkable sixth from P18 on the grid from the first-corner chaos. A lovely postscript to an incredible race – until a niggling technicality for Vettel left the last note from Hungary chiming out of tune.

Fuel irregularity costs Vettel

The four-time world champion had run out of fuel after crossing the line in second place – and it proved costly for Aston Martin. Officials were unable to take the mandatory one-litre sample of fuel from the car after the race for legality testing, and that left the stewards with little choice late on Sunday night but to disqualify Vettel from his hard-earned result. Rules are rules… The decision bumped Hamilton up to second and Sainz back on to the podium he’d lost to Lewis in the latter stages of the race, Latifi and Russell up to seventh and eighth, Verstappen to ninth and Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen into the points in 10^th.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.