Hamilton untouchable at Hungaroring for dominant win; Verstappen recovers from pre-race shunt to take P2, Bottas P3 after poor start

Mercedes Ace Lewis Hamilton romped to victory at one of his favorite tracks on Sunday, dominating the Hungarian Grand Prix from pole and coming home over 8 seconds ahead of his nearest pursuer. It made for Hamilton’s eighth career win at the Hungaroring and his second on the trot out of the first three races of this long delayed 2020 season, sending an ominous message to any other Championship hopeful that in this Mercedes Silver Arrow in this particular era, Ham is still the man to beat. With the field starting on wet weather tires due to a pre-race shower, Hamilton was unfazed and shot away from the top spot on the grid as if from a cannon. On the other hand, his teammate and only true rival due to sharing the identical superlative machinery, Valtteri Bottas, completely muffed his start from P2, very nearly jumping it and then bogging down once the lights really did go out. Bottas struggled for grip and was overtaken by both Ferraris, the overachieving Racing Point of Lance Stroll and, most crucially, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen. The Flying Dutchman, who qualified poorly in P7 and then spun into the barriers on the wet warm-up lap, necessitating a heroic  effort by his mechanics to the front end on the starting grid, remarkably had clawed his way all the way up to P3 by the end of the first flying lap.

Pics courtesy Grand Prix247.com

With the track drying quickly, though, and the clouds looking threatening but producing no more rain it was quickly apparent that everyone should ditch the wet weather tires ASAP. So on lap 2, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc came in and got off Intermediates and onto the quick but very fragile Soft Pirellis, with the Ferrari brain trust choosing to split their strategy in case more rain would necessitate another pit stop in short order. Bottas also pitted but for the more durable Medium tires and this proved to be the right choice, as despite some more rain nearby no more fell on the circuit for the duration of the race. On Lap 3 Hamilton came in for slick rubber and also chose to go onto the Medium compound, as did the second Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, showing that the Scuderia were hedging their bets. But Vettel was held for an interminable time awaiting a safe release into a busy pit lane, which cost the struggling German veteran some seven seconds of valuable time and he emerged behind Bottas in P8.

By this point Leclerc was struggling in P6 on his Hard tires and acting as a blocker to a host of cars behind him, most notably the fast arriving Silver Arrow of Bottas right on his tail. After holding off the Finn gamely for a few laps, Leclerc was forced to surrender to the inevitable when Bottas blew by him for sixth pace on Lap 10. Things didn’t look any better for the other Ferrari when Vettel ran wide on Lap 12 and the second Red Bull of Alexander Albon, who had a terrible qualifying effort and started from P13, was able to overtake him for that eighth place. Meanwhile, as Hamilton ran a lonely and supremely confident race from the front, Bottas set about moving his way back up into a podium spot. He made short work of the two Haas cars, which had made a good call to dive into the pits at the end of the formation lap to become the first cars to change to slicks but were no match for Mercedes factory power. By Lap 16 Bottas had dispatched them and was up to P4, his eye on the very quick Racing Point of Lance Stroll a ways up the road in P3. But he was forced to pit again for another set of Mediums on Lap 33 to maintain the pace he would require to got to the end of the race and still make up for his costly start. It worked a treat, as Bottas was bale to undercut Stroll and take P3 from him when the Canadian had to make his own second stop two laps later.

That’s when Red Bull rolled the dice and brought in their duo for Hard tires, first Albon on Lap 34 and then Verstappen two laps later. By reading the weather and the track conditions correctly, it became distinctly possible that Red Bull were counting on keeping the best possible track position and running those Hards to the end of the race. The only question was how much performance they would maintain and would any potential deterioration drop the P2 Verstappen into the clutches of the eager-to-atone Bottas. With Hamilton making his next stop on Lap 37 and still coming out in the lead with plenty of room to spare it was clear that the battle for the order of the final two places on the podium would come down to Verstappen & Bottas. But Bottas burned his tires off getting tantalizingly close to the Dutch wunderkind and had to pit yet again, this time for Hards. Mercedes may have been thinking they were pulling another undercut maneuver but Verstappen never did come in again, making that possibility moot and handing Vertsappen a big lead instead. With his superior pace, Bottas was able to whittle that gap down but ran out of laps. With Hamilton winning by a whopping 8.7 seconds, Verstappen was able to nurse his aged rubber and hold Bottas off for P2, with the frustrated Finn left wondering what might have been with a cleaner start and coming across the line in P3, a mere seven-tenths in arrears of the Red Bull.

It was a truly excellent weekend in Hungary for the extremely quick Racing Point squad. Whatever the team’s indebtedness to last year’s Mercedes chassis design, Stroll was able to grab a bushel of points with a terrific and highly competitive P4 finish, while Sergio Perez also scored well for the team by finishing P7 despite falling down the order from P4 after a poor start. The second Red Bull of Albon came home P5, a decent result for the young driver’s confidence after a rocky start to the season but still miles away from Verstappen’s pace. Nonetheless, it was the best points day for Red Bull so far this young season with both cars not only managing to finish but both also in the Top 5.

Ferrari had another highly mixed day. Yes, both cars actually finished and there were no intra-team disasters, as in Styria last weekend. But Vettel could only manage to come home P6 after starting P5 and the tire strategy with Leclerc simply didn’t play out at all. The Monegasque struggled on both sets of dry weather tires and ended up out of the points in P11. Whatever has happened to Ferrari’s engines since they were investigated by FIA at the end of last season has obviously robbed the Scuderia (and their clients in the field) of the kind of pace needed to go toe-to-toe with mighty Mercedes. And an uncompetitive Ferrari down on horsepower is frankly is not good for the sport of Formula 1 in this most bizarre and most likely truncated of seasons.

Rounding out the Top 10, Daniel Ricciardo, who did a masterful job managing his tires to maximize the effectiveness of his rather mediocre Renault, took P8; Carlos Sainz was the only McLaren to finish in the money in P9; and Kevin Magnussen made good on Haas’ opening lap tire gamble by taking the last point in P10, the team’s first point of the year.

Top 10 finishers of the Hungarian GP:

Complete race results available via Fomula1.com

After a burst of three races in three weekends to jump start things in 2020, the next race is actually in two weeks time — the British Grand Prix, the first of two consecutive races from the venerable Silverstone circuit.  Situated within his home country, Hamilton often dominates there, so it could be a tough two weeks for anyone else with championship aspirations. Hope to see you then to see how it all shakes out!