Thanks for your company, as ever. Here’s Giles Richards’s race report on another good day at the office for Hamilton at the Hungaroring, after extending his championship lead to 24 points:
Updated
A braided, and victorious, Lewis Hamilton talks. “What a beautiful day – we deserve the holiday that’s coming,” he says. “I’m not a ‘lay down on the beach type of guy’, I will be doing activities and training.” As for Vettel, who takes second for Ferrari, he adds: “P2 is not what we really wanted but it was the maximum we could probably get today.” In the cool-down room Vettel tells Hamilton: “It was too easy for you today.” Here come the anthems ...
Updated
Race result:
1 Hamilton
2 Vettel
3 Raikkonen
4 Ricciardo
5 Bottas
6 Gasly
7 Magnussen
8 Alonso
9 Sainz
10 Grosjean
Lewis Hamilton wins Hungarian GP!
It’s a history-making sixth win for the Mercedes in Hungary. A classy race from pole to finish for Hamilton and he extends his championship lead on a brilliant afternoon for the Briton, with Vettel and Raikkonen behind him in second and third respectively. “Thank you to everyone here and back at the factory,” Hamilton says. “A tough weekend for us but we’ve got some good points.”
Updated
Lap 69/70: “You can still get him,” Ricciardo is told down the team radio. Meanwhile, Bottas is told by Mercedes to hand Ricciardio back P4. Very magnanimous. Into the final lap for Hamilton ..
Updated
Lap 68/70: And now a big clash between Ricciardo and Bottas down the straight! The Mercedes covered the inside line and the Red Bull receives an elbow from Bottas. Ricciardo was in prime position. The stewards will be looking into that one, as well as Vettel v Bottas. A lively couple of minutes!
Updated
Lap 66/70: Ferrari fans erupt in the stands in Budapest after that move, and those hopes of a Mercedes one-two evaporate into thin air. “Daniel’s got a chance to get on to him,” Christian Horner says of Ricciardo’s chances of attacking Bottas.
Lap 65/70: Head in hands moment for Mercedes’ Toto Wolff! Vettel ups the ante, working double-time to nip in front of Bottas and as the Mercedes rallied to hit back, he clashes with the Ferrari; he has some damage to his front wing. Vettel’s into second, Raikkonen assumes third. Ricciardo will fancy his chances of seizing fourth at this rate.
Lap 64/70: Bottas is proving a glorious roadblock for Mercedes. Hamilton has a 22-second lead ...
Lap 62/70: Gasly has had a quiet race really, more than 34secs behind Ricciardo but he’s staying very well ahead of the Toro Rosso’s Magnussen. Barring disaster, he’s guaranteed to be in the points for the first time in five races. Meanwhile, Vettel is asked to up his pace but there’s no free air to attack Bottas.
Lap 60/70:
1 Hamilton 2 Bottas
3 Vettel 4 Raikkonen
5 Ricciardo 6 Gasly
7 Magnussen 8 Alonso
Updated
Lap 59/70: Ricciardo and Gasly remain in the points, while Raikkonen is actually the faster Ferrari now. Will they let him go and have a go at Bottas? Maybe not. Hamilton opens up a 18-second lead. A sixth win at the Hungary GP is on the cards for him ...
Updated
Lap 58/70: And the gap widens to 15.5sec ... Mercedes will be absolutely delighted with a one-two. Bottas has played a blinder with those 44-lap-old tyres. Can Ferrari throw a spanner in the works? Vettel’s not been able to attack him as of yet.
Updated
Lap 56/70: Bottas laps Alonso, with Vettel still breathing down his neck. Hamilton’s now 14 seconds and counting in front of his team-mate, who is getting a little hot under the collar.
Updated
Lap 54/70: Hamilton leads Bottas by 13.4sec. Vettel trails the second-place Mercedes by 0.8secs. At this rate, Mercedes are heading for their first one-two in Hungary since 2016, when Hamilton and Rosberg celebrated a good day at the office. Hamilton’s on course for his sixth win at Hungaroring.
Lap 51/70: Vandoorne’s race is over. He will join Verstappen and Leclerc on the sidelines, with the gearbox giving up the ghost on him and the virtual safety car out. For a minute, it looks as though Mercedes are going to pit, but it’s just a drill .. or a bluff to try and tempt Ferrari into action.
Updated
Lap 50/70: McLaren were bullish and went long and it’s paid off for them, both cars in the points. A welcome bit of respite after their tough struggles of recent races. Alonso’s in eighth, Vandoorne ninth. As it stands, Hamilton would earn a 27-point buffer going into the four-week summer break before Spa.
Updated
Lap 48/70: Hamilton leads Bottas by 10.7sec.
Lap 46/70: Bottas v Vettel is hotting up. “What’s the situation, then?” the German asks Ferrari. He’s going to have to overtake the Mercedes to stand any chance of reaching Hamilton. It’s looking good for Toto Wolff and co at the moment. Meanwhile, Ricciardo sets a new fastest lap of 1.20min.
Updated
Lap 45/70: Ricciardo pits inside 2.2sec. The ultrasoft tyres are on. That was a supremely slick stop.
Lap 43/70: Christian Horner talks from the pit lane. “He’s got a great pace on these soft tyres,” he says of Ricciardo. “He’s done a super job with some great passes. There’s still quite a way to go.”
Lap 42/70: Raikkonen has a moan at Lance Stroll blocking his view as he looks to lap the Canadian. For Ferrari, the gap to Bottas widens once more. Ricciardo, yet to stop, is flying high in fourth.
Updated
Lap 41/70: Vettel is 0.4sec behind Bottas, and doubtless revved up, he’s determined to clear him to get to Hamilton going into turn four. Meanwhile, Raikkonen sets a 1.21.405, a new fastest lap. Those 4.5sec stationary in the pits could come back to bite Ferrari and Vettel. A helping hand for Hamilton.
Lap 40/70: A sticky stop, with a hiccup on his front-left tyre costing Vettel and Ferrari a place. He returns to the track with not one but two Mercedes cars in front of him. Alonso also pits. And, just like, Hamilton is back on top, with Bottas second.
Lap 39/70: Bottas has set a new fastest lap, as Raikkonen comes in for his second stop. Vettel is readying himself to pit, a few minutes after telling Ferrari he required help to navigate those stragglers. The race leader will pit imminently ...
Updated
Lap 36/70: Vettel’s losing time meandering past a few back markers, with Hamilton only 10sec behind him. Once he gets beyond Ocon, he has a bit of clear air to Magnussen, whose in ninth.
Lap 35/70: Vettel leads Hamilton by 13.1sec with half of the race to play. Bottas is 12sec behind his Mercedes team-mate, in third.
Updated
Lap 34/70: Hamilton seems to be pacing himself a little, acutely aware that Vettel, who began in fourth, could be on his tail with fresher tyres down the line. Both are on softs, though the Ferrari is yet to pit.
Lap 33/70: A dodgy pit-stop by Haas means Magnussen has plummeted down to ninth, losing ground on Alonso and Vandoorne after a brilliant start in Budapest. It’s affected his team-mate Grosjean too. We’re approaching the halfway stage.
Lap 32/70: Vettel’s 14.5sec in front of Hamilton – but is of course yet to stop. Bottas is third, followed by Raikkonen, Ricciardo and then Gasly, with the latter in search of points for the first time in five races. It’s plain sailing, really, out there as far as the top five are concerned at the moment.
Lap 30/70: “Still gaining on Bottas, keep your head down,” Vettel is told. Presumably that means the race leader is going faster than the Mercedes. Meanwhile, Stroll advances past Perez. Could they be team-mates next year? Ocon is reportedly off to Renault.
Lap 29/70: Hamilton, who has just lapped the Sauber of Ericsson, trails leader Vettel by 13 seconds.
Lap 27/70: Hulkenberg v Hartley looks a good match-up, with the pair down in 13th and 14th respectively. And, just look at him go, Ricciardo clips the wings of Pierre Gasly to jump into fifth. Elsewhere, Bottas is fed information by Mercedes that Vettel’s going to be out on track for at least another 20 laps yet before pitting. It’s all to play for yet.
Lap 26/70: What can Vettel do with that chunk of free air? Meanwhile, Sainz has pitted.
Updated
Lap 25/70: Peter Bonnington, the Mercedes race engineer, cues Lewis Hamilton to come into the pits. It’s a slick operation, and he comes out in second, sandwiched in between Vettel and Bottas.
Lap 24/70: Hulkenberg is in and out of the pits, a smart stop. He’ll come out 14th, ahead of Sirotkin. Perez remains the back marker, behind Ericsson.
Lap 23/70: Vettel is pushing hard but lost 1.2sec into turn 12 after gambling on speed into the corner. That clumsy error has undone quite a lot of his good work. Hamilton will gladly take that.
Lap 22/70: Vettel’s told that Ferrari are working on Plan C with him, whatever that means, but that surely is evidence that this race is not unfolding as they would have liked. He’s around seven seconds behind the race leader, Hamilton.
Lap 21/70: ... and Ricciardo moves into sixth.
Lap 20/70: Magnussen fends off Ricciardo once more – nice work. But it’s surely only a matter of time for the Red Bull to rack up another victim. At the front, Hamilton leads Vettel. Bottas is third, with Gasly in fourth after Raikkonen pitted.
Lap 19/70: The air temperature is around 32 degrees while the track temperature has cooled a little to around 48 degrees. Ricciardo, unsurprisingly, given his race so far, insists he’s happy with his tyres, with Kevin Magnussen now in his sights.
Lap 17/70: Good news for Mercedes; Lewis Hamilton sets a new fastest lap, a 1.22.402sec. He’s quick. “Good work, Lewis. Keep them coming,” comes the message from the pits.
Updated
Lap 16/70: Ricciardo’s unstoppable out there at the moment ... you’ve guessed it: he’s up into seventh after flying inside Sainz.
Updated
Lap 15/70: Ricciardo’s flying round the circuit, less than a second behind Carlos Sainz. “Keep up that energy,” the Australian’s told, while the Mercedes, Bottas, nips in and out of the pits inside 2.5sec.
Updated
Lap 14/70: Ricciardo is relishing the responsibility of being the only Red Bull face still out on track. He zooms in front of Hartley to take eighth. “Well done, Daniel. Next one, Sainz,” is the message down the team radio. Meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen pits early for Ferrari. It’s a sluggish 5.1sec stop.
Updated
Lap 13/70: ... and now Ricciardo’s into ninth; he storms in front of Nico Hülkenberg. Meanwhile, Grosjean feels he’s in trouble with a lack of tyre grip. Brendon Hartley’s in his sights.
Updated
Lap 12/70: Pierre Gasly is up to fifth, and he’s enjoying a solid start in Budapest. He’s nine seconds behind fourth-place Kimi Raikkonen.
Updated
Lap 11/70: Hamilton leads Bottas by five seconds.
Lap 10/70: Raikkonen’s in a tiff down the team radio; he’s worried Ferrari forgot to connect his drinks bottle to his car. Drat.
Updated
Lap 9/70: Ricciardo, who started 12th, is up into 11th, accelerating beyond Alonso down the straight. He’s the only remaining Red Bull in this race following an eighth retirement of the season. “Cruel, cruel luck for Max [Verstappen],” says Horner of his early exit. “It’s an engine issue, it’s no surprise really. We pay millions of pounds for a state-of-the-art product and it’s clearly below that.”
Updated
Lap 8/70: And now Alonso is standing his ground as Ricciardo looks for a way to seize 11th.
Lap 7/70: Grosjean nips in front of Fernando Alonso to leap into 10th. At the front, Hamilton leads Bottas by approaching four seconds, followed by the two Ferraris in hot pursuit.
Lap 6/70: “No power, no power,” wails Max Verstappen, and his race is over. After a flying start, he’s out of this one and Christian Horner’s shaking head is working overtime. Meanwhile, Ricciardo, at the second time of asking, jumps into 13th. Horner’s absolutely fuming, while Verstappen’s not a happy bunny either, yelling a few choice words down the team radio.
Lap 5/70: With the help of DRS, Ricciardo attempts to zoom beyond Vandoorne but gets it all wrong and goes wayward. He momentarily heads off the track and it’s back to the drawing board for the Red Bull. Vettel is just over a second behind Bottas.
Lap 4/70: It was Ericsson and Ricciardo who clashed into turn one, though the Australian did have a little nibble at Leclerc soon after. Leclerc then clashed with the Force India of Ocon. Hamilton leads from the front, three seconds ahead of Bottas.
Lap 3/70: Hamilton sets an early fastest lap of 1.23.184sec. Sainz has dropped to eighth, with Magnussen into seventh. Gasly’s sixth.
2/70: Ricciardo has suffered possible damage to his front-left tyre, tumbling down into 16th after starting from 12th. Meanwhile, Charles Leclerc’s race is already over with what looks like a mechanical issue for the Sauber. No safety car in sight just yet.
Updated
Lights out!
Hamilton gets away well from pole to lead into turn 1 and beyond, while Raikkonen eats away at Bottas but it’s Vettel who jumps into third. Verstappen, meanwhile, makes up a place, as does Fernando Alonso. A good start for Mercedes ...
Updated
Vettel and Sainz, in fourth and fifth off the grid respectively, have both opted for the soft tyres, while the rest of the top 10 are sitting pretty on ultrasofts. The formation lap is under way at Hungaroring.
Before the pre-race formalities begin to get underway, including the national anthem, there will be a minute’s silence following the death of the Ferrari boss, Sergio Marchionne, who died this week aged 66 after complications from undergoing shoulder surgery.
Updated
As temperatures soar, Pérez talks more politics. “It’s been a very tough couple of months,” he says. “I was in a situation I never wanted to be, I am just a racing driver and I had to save the jobs of 400 people. All I can say to the factory is that things will be good.”
Updated
After tiptoeing round the circuit in places, Hamilton earned his fifth pole of the season, his sixth in Hungary, one short of Michael Schumacher’s record. “The last couple of years I haven’t been good here and the rain helped,” he says. “If it was dry, I wouldn’t have done it. It is almost impossible to get it right every time.”
Updated
Away from the racing, Sergio Pérez has been at pains to explain why he took steps to push Force India into administration, insisting he had the at-risk 400-odd jobs at the forefront of his mind, with the finances of the team in a “critical position for some time”. Several parties are said to be interested in taking over the team. The Mexican, who has driven for Force India since 2014, said that in order to ward off a winding-up petition which he says would have seen the team “shut down immediately and everyone lose their jobs”, he was told to start administration proceedings against the team as one of the creditors.
Updated
Before we go full steam ahead with events in Budapest, read Giles Richards’s interview with the brilliant Bristol-born teenager:
For a driver tipped to be a star of the future in Formula One and indeed, one so young, Lando Norris seems impressively free from unnecessary ego – doubly so given the British driver is on what appears to be a fast track into F1. He is McLaren’s test and reserve driver and after this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix is expected to climb behind the wheel of their car for the test here on Tuesday. He is also in a fierce battle in F2, a competition fast honing his skills for the expected step up to the top series
The grid!
1 Hamilton 2 Bottas
3 Räikkönen 4 Vettel
5 Sainz 6 Gasly
7 Verstappen 8 Hartley
9 Magnussen 10 Grosjean
11 Alonso 12 Ricciardo
13 Hülkenberg 14 Ericsson
15 Vandoorne 16 Leclerc
17 Ocon 18 Pérez
19 Sirotkin 20 Stroll
Preamble
The heavens opened and a wet Hungaroring track came up trumps for Lewis Hamilton, who stole pole to upstage Ferrari in Budapest, with Valtteri Bottas claiming the spot alongside his Mercedes team-mate on the front row. This was supposed to be a troublesome weekend, before heading into the four-week break before Spa-Francorchamps. With chances to swoop in and overtake likely to be at a premium – only Monaco is trickier – Hamilton is very much in the box-seat. “We were lucky with the weather,” said Mercedes’ executive director, Toto Wolff. “In the dry we didn’t have the pace.”
With nine to races to run, Hamilton leads the drivers’ championship by 17 points before this afternoon’s feast, that win in Vettel’s back garden at Hockenheim has seemingly done Hamilton the world of good. Vettel was victorious round this circuit last year but Hamilton’s a five-time winner in Hungary. “I’m not that disappointed, it was tricky out there,” Vettel said of qualifying. “I think we are pretty happy to take the second row.”
Lights out: 2.10pm (BST)
Updated
