Hamilton redeems Mercedes’ 2-stop gamble by hunting down Verstappen Red Bull for victory late in the game; Ferrari’s Vettel & Leclerc P3 & P4 but miles off the pace

The last race before the summer break turned into a thrilling affair in Hungary on Sunday, with Red Bull’s Max Vertsappen seeking to win his first race from pole and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton looking for redemption after a disastrously sloppy run at a rainy Hockenheim a week ago. It all came down to a crucial strategy call by the Silver Arrows braintrust that even the supremely skilled Hamilton was uncertain would succeed. With an insurmountable lead to the trailing Ferraris behind him and having wrung the life out his Hard Pirellis chasing down Verstappen in the lead for 18 laps, his best attempts to pass all thwarted, Mercedes gambled and called Hamilton back in for a fresh set of Medium tires on Lap 49. The strategists had worked the sums and believed that Hamilton’s fresher and better performing rubber would be able to make up huge chunks of time on the Dutchman, who was running a conventional one-stopper and had switched to the Hards off of Mediums way back on Lap 25. While it took several laps to begin paying off and Hamilton voiced his doubts about the call during that limbo period the maneuver finally started coming good on Lap 59 when the delta between Hamilton’s tire performance increase and Vertsappen’s aging Pirrellis’ drop off began to intersect.

At first it crept up to over a second a lap pace advantage for Hamilton. By Lap 65 the English defending champion was more than 2 seconds a lap faster than the struggling Vertasppan, who could do nothing to avert his fate at the front of the race. With the Red Bulls’ tires completely shagged, Hamilton made an easy pass down into Turn 1 on Lap 67 to take the lead with three laps remaining at the Hungaroring. Verstappen subsequently dove to the pits on Lap 68 to change to Soft tires and set the fastest lap for the bonus point but it was cold comfort for the surging prodigy, who was looking for his third victory in the last four GP, as well as running then table in Hungary after his first-ever career pole position. But Verstppen was a victim of his success to a degree and the team were unwilling to roll the dice on throwing away his front-running track position with a like-for-like stop when Hamilton hit the pits for his second stop. So Hamilton rewarded team Mercedes’ excellent strategy gamble with qualifying lap after qualifying lap to take the win and restore what the 5-time champ will certainly see as the natural pecking order of F1 in 2019. But one thing is for certain — Verstappen in the intpoving Red Bull versus Hamilton in the on-the-limit Mercedes is the fight that every Formula1 fan has been anticipating for some time now. If the second half of the season is going to be anything like these last several tight races that battle is going to be epic.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

It was certainly not all good news for Mercedes, or Red Bull for that matter. Their second driver, Valtteri Bottas, who appears to be genuinely at risk for keeping his factory Merc seat, had just the start he didn’t need after out-qualifying Hamilton in P2. Bottas was swamped at the start as Hamilton quickly surged by him after Bottas locked up a couple of times. Then Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc swept across track in an overtaking move and contacted the Finn’s front wing. The resultant damage forced Bottas to pit way out of sequence for a new nose on Lap 6 and the long 17-second stop for those repairs put him on the back foot for the rest of the race. While Bottas ran long on that second set of Hards he could only regain limited positions, was forced to pit again for fresh Mediums on Lap 47 and could only haul himself up to a P8 finish. It was obviously not the result the Finn needed to reassure Mercedes that he should be their man again next year. Likewise Pierre Gasly finished where he started for Red Bull, in P6, after a relatively uneventful race. This once again showed the massive performance split between Verstappen and Gasly and the young Frenchman’s inability to qualify better is also resulting in him being of limited use to his elite teammate during the races.

Ferrari had a very meh day. While Sebastian Vettel did manage to pass his teammate Leclerc for P3 and the last spot on the podium late in the race, the Prancing Horses’ 3-4 result was deceptively mediocre as Vettel was nearly 45 seconds adrift of Verstappen in P2 even after the Red Bull’s late second stop. Whether it was the circuit or some deeper issue, Ferrari had nothing for the top two runners. The next race after the break at Spa-Francorchamps should be a better fit for their high power, low drag set up and if it isn’t we’ll know there are bigger problems. McLaren’s Carlos Sainz had a second consecutive strong P5, with his junior teammate Lando Norris coming home P9, a very solid result for the team. Wise old head Kimi Raikkonen once again piloted his Alfa-Romeo superbly, getting the most out of the car for an impressive P7 finish. And Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon took the last points-paying position in P10.

Top 10 finishers of the Hungarian GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

Now comes the hard-earned summer break for the teams so the next race weekend resumes in Belgium at the classic & venerable Spa-Francorchamps track at the end of the month on August 30th with race on September 1st. Hope to see you then to find out whether Red Bull can continue to close the gap to Mercedes, Ferrari can get headed back in the right direction or if Mercedes will make strides of their own to expand upon their first half dominance.