Alpine’s Ocon earns shock victory in Hungary after first lap melee takes out five top contenders; Vettel finishes P2 for Aston Martin but DQ’d for fuel violation; Hamilton fights back to take P3 after early strategic error by Mercedes; Verstappen salvages P10 on disastrous day for Red Bull

Just a little bit of rain before the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix was enough to soak the Hungaroring and lead directly to a thoroughly scrambled race with some of the most unexpected results in a Formula 1 contest seen in years. With all the runners starting the GP on Intermediate wet weather Pirelli tires, the die was cast for massive unpredictability when Mercedes number two man, Valtteri Bottas, perhaps trying to make up for a poor start that saw the Finn lose several spots when the lights went out, badly misjudged his breaking point going into Turn 1 and plowed into the back of McLaren’s Lando Norris. That set off a chain reaction of mayhem and collisions amongst several top contenders that led to the retirement of not just Bottas and Norris but also the Red Bull of Sergio Perez, the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll when all were mauled too badly to continue. And while pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton was unaffected by his teammate’s blunder, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was not so lucky, as he was smashed into by Stroll when the Canadian attempted to reenter the track after taking evasive action prior. That led to major damage to Verstappen’s floor and barge board that was not able to be fully repaired even in the prolonged Red Flag period for cleanup that followed that massive first lap shunt, badly compromising the Dutchman’s race pace thereafter.

Meanwhile, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, who started in P8 and P10 respectively, danced their way through the carnage and were able to emerge unscathed with the wreckage in their rearview and only Hamilton in front, with Ocon ascending to P2 and Vettel to P3 when first the Safety Car was deployed and then the race halted for the Red Flag. After the debris field had been cleaned up, Hamilton led the field back to the grid for a standing restart at the end of Lap 3. But the Englishman found himself starting completely alone on the track because the entirety of the other fourteen cars still able to participate dove into the pits to get off the wet tires and onto slicks, as the circuit had dried sufficiently for that maneuver and no more rain was forecast on the day. It was a bad miscalculation by the Mercedes brain trust, perhaps aggravated by the ban on team comms with the leader during the formation lap, because Hamilton was forced to plod around for an extra lap before he could get his own slick Medium Pirellis, while the entirety of the field zoomed around on that fresh racy rubber. By the time Hamilton emerged form the pits, the erstwhile race leader found himself dead last in P14 (Haas’ Nikita Mazepin having been taken out of the race by a pit lane collision with the unsafely released Alfa of Kimi Raikkonen). That strange strategic error by the usually nimble Mercedes pit wall saw Ocon take the lead of the race with only Vettel within shouting distance of the Frenchman. With Hamilton having it all to do to claw his way back into contention, Ocon controlled the race masterfully at the front and his Alpine team also aided him with a sterling pit stop at the end of Lap 37 nearly a second quicker than Vettel’s the lap prior. That proved to be the decisive edge that Ocon needed and the 24-year-old Frenchman was able to keep the 34-year-old and four time champion Vettel behind him until the very end no matter how much pressure the German veteran applied. When the checkers flew, Ocon took was 1.859 to the good ahead of Vettel to earn a stunning maiden Formula 1 victory that no oddsmaker would have given you 100-to-1 on at the beginning of the day.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

To make matters even more frustrating for the already frustrated Vettel, his Aston ran out of fuel on the cool down lap and then was unable to provide a liter’s worth of gas to the FIA, as required. Therefore, Vettel was disqualified and his terrific P2 result nullified. That meant that Hamilton, who fought like crazy, particularly with Ocon’s Alpine teammate, Fernando Alonso, in real multi-lap, wheel-banging ding dong battle, to will himself up to a P3 podium spot despite feeling dizziness and fatigue during the contest, was then promoted to P2 and earned 18 championship points, a net of three extra points due to Vettel’s infraction. Meanwhile, Verstappen struggled to make headway against normally inferior competitors in his badly damaged Red Bull and could only make it back up to P10, earning an addition point due to his promotion after the race. That vaulted Hamilton into the championship lead over Verstappen by six points entering the long post-Hungary summer break after trailing for much of the season. To make matters worse for team Red Bull, with Checo’s early retirement after a non-scoring effort two week’s ago in Britain where Max crashed out on the opening lap, they have scored a grand total of two Constructors’ points in the last two rounds and now trail mighty Mercedes by ten in that all-important contest. They will head into the break angry and frustrated by their recent run of bad luck but it is too soon to count them out, as they are too solid of a team and Verstappen too talented of a driver to fold under adversity. On the other hand, Mercedes have their own work to do between too frequent strategy mishaps and the failure of Bottas to consistently score as strongly as Hamilton does. Bottas will also have to contend with a five-spot grid penalty when racing resumes at Spa at the end of August due to his disastrous start today.

The lone surviving Ferrari of Carlos Sainz salvaged some good points for the team with a P4 finish, though he was no match for Hamilton late in the race after the Mercedes had pitted a third time for fresh Mediums while the Spaniard was stuck on much older Hards. Alonso was rewarded for his yeoman’s work holding up Hamilton from truly threatening Ocon’s win, finishing a valuable P5 and making it a massively exuberant points haul for the Renault-powered Alpine team, not to mention Ocon being the first French driver to win in a French car since Alain Prost back in 1983. Alonso was visibly delighted for his younger teammate’s success, something that is seen all too infrequently in the hyper-competitive Formula 1 milieu. AlphaTauri also had a sterling day, with Pierre Gasly surviving the opening lap contretemps to come home P6, as well as with the extra point for fastest lap, and his rookie teammate Yuki Tsunoda making it two races in a row scoring points, this time a valuable P7 after his P10 at Silverstone. Another absolutely elated team was Williams, who capitalized on the high attrition rate to score points with both drivers for the first time since 2018, with the unsung Nicolas Latifi actually leading home his more heralded teammate, George Russell, P8 to P9. It marked the first F1 championship points for either young pilot and made a fitting coda to a most unpredictable race.

Top 10 finishers of the Hungarian GP:

*Note that Vettel was disqualified post-race because the FIA could not get the required liter’s worth of fuel for a sample from his car. All others behind were promoted one spot up the order.

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The long August break is upon us and the next race is four week’s away — the classic Belgian Grand Prix from the beautiful and sweeping Spa-Francorchamps circuit, one of the oldest on the schedule. With some teams and drivers needing the time off more than others, here’s wishing you a nice respite before we get back to racing action. Hope to see you with bells on for when we return for the cation in Belgium!