28/70 Russell is pitting at last, having gone from seventh, and 3.9 seconds is slow. He comes out in ninth.
27/70 Leclerc and Antonelli, fifth and sixth, are an imminent battle, the Mercedes travelling 0.7 seconds faster.
26/70 Verstappen is dropping back of the McLaren pair. Piastri tells his team his tyres “don’t feel great”.
25/70 Piastri and Norris are both flying, back to the old school, and look very quick indeed.
24/70 Fernando Alonso is in 10th, the first time he’s raced in a points position all season in his Aston Martin.
23/70 Antonelli comes in, for 2.1 seconds, very quick, and he’s in sixth. The tyres should speed him back up the race. Russell’s yet to pit. He needs a safety car to save him.
22/70 Antonelli’s gap on Piastri is 9.5 seconds. Can he make a one-stop strategy work? It appears not…
21/70 Russell up to seventh, and it looks as if Antonelli and him are on a one-stop strategy. Leclerc, in sixth, has had a quiet race in the Ferrari.
Updated
20/70 Verstappen is driving very well, despite all his gripes.
19/70 Piastri blasts past Hadjar, and Norris does the same. The two McLarens are through, and Hadjar allows Verstappen through, but blocks off Hamilton. The blocking doesn’t last long, and Hamilton is in fifth.
18/70 Norris pits and it’s slow, and Antonelli now leads. What is the Mercedes strategy? Hadjar, yet to pit, is in second. Piastri and Norris are third and fourth, and managed to pit ahead of Verstappen.
17/70 Piastri comes in, and so Norris leads. Verstappen, having pulled off such a good move, is still complaining, saying his brakes did all the work. Such a grump.
Verstappen overtakes Hamilton
16/70 Piastri was coming in but as soon as Bottas, with smoke pouring out. At the same time, Verstappen, suddenly flying, overtakes Hamilton and into sixth. Great driving, on the limit.
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Hamilton undercuts Verstappen on the pit stop.
15/70 Verstappen comes in, where will he come out? His is a quick stop but Hamilton gets the jump on Verstappen. Gamble landed by the Ferrari team.
14/70 Ferrari to pit, and it’s Hamilton who’s in for a good stop. The two-stop strategy is on. Red Bull are preparing to do similarly. Hamilton comes out in ninth. The undercut is on? He’s up to eighth, behind Liam Lawson.
13/70 Alex Albon is shown going off the track, and he’s in 19th, having locked up and performed what looks like a handbrake turn.
12/70 Russell is in 11th, and will surely get up to Hadjar before he finds any trouble. Verstappen’s tyres are in decay, it appears. He won’t take that well.
11/70 “The tyres feel good”, says Piastri, who doesn’t have to deal with dirty air. Verstappen is complaining about his gear shifts. “Max is really slow,” Hamilton tells his Ferrari team. As yet, he has not been able to overtake.
10/70 “Dirty air, much faster,” Lando Norris tells the McLaren garage. He’s not close enough to his teammate, Oscar Piastri just yet.
9/70 Lance Stroll is first to pit. Will Ferrari come into the pits for those tyres. Antonelli is not doing much in chasing down Leclerc. He’s told by Bono to keep the gap close.
8/70 Lovely sweeping bends on this track but that makes it difficult to overtake. The gao between Verstappen and Hamilton is very thin.
7/70 Still a packed field. Antonelli is behind Charles Leclerc, and must fancy overtaking an opponent on the soft tyres. Russell is up to 13th.
6/70 McLaren first and second brings back memories of last season. Max Verstappen uses a rude word to describe the performance of his Red Bull car.
5/70 A replay of the start shows Russell dropping back in the field before he can get his engine underway. Lando Norris’ second bend mistake shows some hesititancy.
4/70 It’s dusty and breezy. Hamilton bides his time. Only three seconds separate the top five. Piastri, with open road in front of him, has set a new fastest lap. Liam Lawson is in eighth. Russell, with plenty of traffic to deal with, is in 16th.
3/70 Verstappen v Hamilton is the battle here, and it requires great defensive work from Verstappen. The McLaren pair can thus ease away. Hamilton has the fastest lap.
2/70 Piastri, Norris, Verstappen, Hamilton, Leclerc, Antonelli, Hadjar is the top seven. Russell lost 12 places after the anti-stall on his Merc caught him out. He’s in 18th.
Lights out in Hungary - Piastri takes the lead
1/70 Lando Norris starts well, Piastri goes into second. Verstappen goes into fourth, as Leclerc drops back, and then Norris goes wide and Piastri takes the lead. Contact between Verstappen and Hamilton? Russell has dropped way back, and into 21st? His woes continue. “What happened there,” he wails.
Updated
We’ll soon be off in the 11th race of the season at Hungaroring. Hold steady for 70 laps. Like the World Cup trophy, Louis Vuitton are looking after the winners’ silverware. The formation lap begins, a sonic boom of revving engines.
Lando Norris is eating what appears to be rice pudding, doubtless with extra protein protection. It’s hot out there, with Bono saying it’s 50 degrees on track, though there’s also a wind picking up.
Martin Brundle starts his own dance. Laurence Stroll, Mr Aston Martin, is there, and happy enough with his team. Adrian Newey is not around, so Brunds doesn’t get to speak to the great man. Herbie Blash, FIA veteran, recalls the first Hungarian GP from 1966 fondly. George Hendy, rugby man, has been enjoying his time on the grid. Joe Ramirez, another veteran, has been to every GP here, and his first ever was Monaco in 1962. We seem short on celebs as compared to the glitzier tracks. This isn’t like the World Cup. No sign of David Beckham or Tom Brady. Quick chat with Bono, Antonelli’s man: “Bit rough,” he says of the Antonelli penalty. “We’re at least on the grippy side of the grid. Here’s Adrian Newey. “We had so little prep time,” he says. He’s scoping out the McLaren. Casey Stoney, bikes legend. “There’s ups and downs with the regs, it’s overcomplicated, I like how much power there is.” And so to the anthem…
Updated
As we await the preliminaries, some Hungarian folk dancing is taking place, the czardas.
If you are interested: “A courting dance for couples, it begins with a slow section (lassu), followed by an exhilarating fast section (friss). The individual dancers carry themselves proudly and improvise on a simple fundamental step, their feet snapping inward and outward, the couples whirling.”
There’s a metaphor there somewhere.
Kimi Antonelli speaks: “Obviously is a pity to, you know, to have gone down those three places, but, you know, is what it is, and the most important is that we try to maximise today’s race, but pace is good. It’s very warm today, a big gustier, as well, so it’s gonna be interesting to see.
“The race pace has been stronger than our single lap, so... I think there’s a lot to play for, … so we try to do our best, uh, but I’m really looking forward to it, and hopefully, we can do a good race for the team, for myself, and for the fans.”
More groans and gripes.
F1 is not a happy camp these days.
Nor was it a surprise, pre-race predictions from drivers proving all too prescient. With two sectors of long straights and little chance to harvest, the cars were energy starved, reducing the middle sector to internal combustion engine power only, effectively half of their potential output. It meant the cars were so down on power that corners such as Pouhon, an exquisite test of risk and reward, of seeing quite how far a car could be pushed, were now barely worth a consideration.
Read Giles Richards’ qualifying report.
Norris took the top spot for McLaren by one-hundredth of a second from Hamilton’s Ferrari, but the latter’s place on the front row remained in doubt, as he was under investigation by the FIA.
Hamilton said he had been informed by the team that Piastri was closing on him only when the McLaren was already right behind him and that he did not know anyone was still on a hot lap behind him. Nonetheless, after qualifying, the stewards ruled he was at fault and imposed the grid penalty.
Max Verstappen, starting in fourth, speaks: “I don’t really know where we where we stand, all right, like how competitive, of course, we can be.
“I’m starting a little bit further ahead because of penalties of others, but, um, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, hopefully, of course, we get positively surprised in the race.”
He remains unimpressed by his Red Bull car,
Drivers’ standings before the Hungarian GP
1 Kimi Antonelli 🇮🇹Mercedes 204pts
2 Lewis Hamilton 🇬🇧 Ferrari 159
3 George Russell 🇬🇧 Mercedes 154
4 Charles Leclerc 🇲🇨Ferrari 126
5 Lando Norris 🇬🇧McLaren 103
6 Oscar Piastri 🇦🇺McLaren 92
7 Max Verstappen 🇳🇱Red Bull 91
8 Isack Hadjar 🇫🇷Red Bull 60
9 Pierre Gasly 🇫🇷Alpine 42
10 Liam Lawson 🇳🇿Racing Bulls 39
11 Arvid Lindblad 🇬🇧Racing Bulls 22
12 Franco Colapinto 🇦🇷Alpine 19
13 Oliver Bearman 🇬🇧Haas 18
14 Gabriel Bortoleto 🇧🇷Audi 10
15 Carlos Sainz 🇪🇸Williams 6
16 Alexander Albon 🇹🇭Williams 5
17 Esteban Ocon 🇫🇷Haas 3
18 Fernando Alonso 🇪🇸Aston Martin 1
– Alexander Albon 🇹🇭Williams
– Lance Stroll 🇨🇦Aston Martin
– Valtteri Bottas 🇫🇮Cadillac
– Sergio Pérez 🇲🇽Cadillac
Preamble
The last GP until the summer break, and it’s back to a time-honoured track in the Hungaroring, it being 40 years since the first Formula One race behind the old Iron Curtain was held in 1986. The winner back then was Nelson Piquet, and the last two winners have been McLarens in Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, who takes pole this time around. Saturday’s qualifying was eventful, with three-placed penalties for the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli.
HUNGARIAN GP GRID
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After penalties for Hamilton, Antonelli and Pérez
1 Lando Norris 🇬🇧McLaren 1:17.207
2 Charles Leclerc 🇲🇨Ferrari 1:17.445
3 Oscar Piastri 🇦🇺McLaren 1:17.684
4 Max Verstappen 🇳🇱Red Bull 1:17.725
5 *Lewis Hamilton 🇬🇧Ferrari 1:17.219
6 George Russell 🇬🇧Mercedes 1:17.760
7 **Kimi Antonelli 🇮🇹Mercedes 1:17.479
8 Isack Hadjar 🇫🇷Red Bull 1:17.760
9 Arvid Lindblad 🇬🇧Racing Bulls 1:18.281
10 Nico Hülkenberg 🇩🇪Audi 1:18.686
11 Liam Lawson 🇳🇿Racing Bulls 1:18.765
12 Pierre Gasly 🇫🇷Alpine 1:18.844
13 Franco Colapinto 🇦🇷Alpine 1:19.027
14 Gabriel Bortoleto 🇧🇷Audi 1:19.105
15 Esteban Ocon 🇫🇷Haas 1:19.734
16 Fernando Alonso 🇪🇸Aston Martin 1:19.808
17 Oliver Bearman 🇬🇧Haas 1:20.233
18 Carlos Sainz 🇪🇸Williams 1:20.621
19 Alexander Albon 🇹🇭Williams 1:20.658
20 Lance Stroll 🇨🇦Aston Martin 1:20.659
21 Valtteri Bottas 🇫🇮Cadillac 1:20.886
22 †Sergio Pérez 🇲🇽Cadillac 1:21.322
*Three-place penalty for impeding Piastri in qualifying
**Three-place penalty for not slowing under yellow flags in qualifying
†Starting from the pitlane after modifications under parc fermé
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