After controversy in Britain, tensions were high between Mercedes and Red Bull as they lined up on the grid for the FORMULA 1 ROLEX MAGYAR NAGYDÍJ 2021 in Hungary. It was a race that started in damp conditions, causing chaos that resulted in multiple retirements in the first corner. A chaotic restart put Hamilton on the back foot and helped to give Esteban Ocon his first career victory.
It was a chaotic race start in damp conditions. Valtteri Bottas had a horrible start from the front row of the grid, allowing Sergio Perez to get on his left side and Lando Norris to sneak by in the right side. Norris was fully ahead of Bottas and the Mercedes driver was driving behind the McLaren. Bottas locked up in the braking zone, slamming into the back of Norris. Both cars spun wide, collecting both Red Bull cars.
Meanwhile, further back, Lance Stroll also locked up his Aston Martin. He dove into the inside grass to try and avoid hitting the cars ahead, but ended up slamming into the sidepod of Charles Leclerc, who then also collected Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren.
Both Bottas and Stroll were not able to continue the race, along with Perez and Leclerc. The safety car was deployed, but the red flag was later deployed, allowing teams to make necessary repairs to their damaged cars while the marshals worked to remove the many stranded cars from the track. Under the red flag, Norris’ car was wheeled into the McLaren garage and was retired.
The stewards decided to hand Valtteri Bottas a 5 place grid penalty for the next race in Belgium.
After about half an hour, the race was ready to resume with a standing restart. The cars emerged from the pit lane on intermediate tyres, but it became very clear on the formation lap that these were not the tyres to be on. The track had dried to slick conditions, leading everyone to dive into the pit lane for slick tyres, leaving Lewis Hamilton sitting alone on the starting grid.
In the busy pit lane, Kimi Raikkonen was released from his pit box in the path of Nikita Mazepin. The two collided and Mazepin was forced to retire the car. The incident caught the attention of the stewards, earning Raikkonen a 10 second time penalty for unsafe release.
Hamilton restarted the race in the lead, but had to limp around on the wrong tyres to pit for new tyres. George Russell left the pit lane in P2, but he had some issues on the opening lap of the restart, dropping down the field and forfeiting the net lead to Esteban Ocon.
After the first lap of the restart, Hamilton pitted for a set of slick tyres, demoting him to the last of the running cars. Esteban Ocon, Sebastian Vettel and Nicholas Latifi inherited the top 3 positions.
At the rear of the field, Mick Schumacher was defending against Max Verstappen. On lap 14, Verstappen was late on the brakes into turn 1 to try and go around the outside of the Haas, but he ran wide over the kerbs. He tried again around the outside of turn 2. On the exit of the corner, Verstappen was slightly ahead of Schumacher. The two make contact when Verstappen began to move left to take the racing line. Both drivers were fine, but Verstappen’s car earned yet another battle scar as he got by the Haas.
On lap 20, Mercedes decided to try and undercut Verstappen, calling Hamilton into the pit lane for a set of new hard tyres. Red Bull responded the following lap, pitting for hard tyres. Daniel Ricciardo in the sole McLaren also pitted slightly ahead of Verstappen. Hamilton got by Verstappen in the pit exit and overtook Ricciardo around the outside of turn 1, making his way into the points.
Hamilton slowly made his way through the field. When Hamilton overtook Yuki Tsunoda for P5, Ferrari was forced to make their pit stop to cover off the Mercedes. He rejoined the race comfortably in front of Hamilton.
At the front of the race, the final pit stops started for the leading cars. Sebastian Vettel was the first of the top 3 to pit, trying to undercut Ocon for the lead of the race. His pit stop was slightly slower than usual due to a minor issue on the rear tyres. That blunder added a little less than a second to his pit stop.
Alpine responded by bringing Ocon into the pit lane, rejoining the race narrowly ahead of Vettel. Vettel put up a good fight on the warmer tyres, but was not able to get around the Frenchman into the lead of the race. A couple of laps later, Fernando Alonso pitted for tyres, dropping behind Hamilton and giving the race lead back to Ocon.
Stuck without making an progress through the field, Hamilton pitted for a set of new medium tyres on lap 48. After about 5 laps, Hamilton was on the back of Fernando Alonso. The two engaged in a thrilling battle that would last 10 laps. Hamilton made multiple overtakes around the outside of turn 1, turn 3 and turn 4, but Alonso was successful in defending his former teammate. It wasn’t until Alonso locked up slightly in turn 1 on lap 65 that Hamilton was able to get by the Alpine and up into P4.
With Alonso out of the way, Sainz was a sitting duck to Hamilton on the fresher tyres. The overtake was done with just 3 laps remaining in the race. Both drivers had DRS down the main straight as Sainz was lapping Ricciardo. Hamilton dove to the inside of the first corner, getting by the Ferrari. Sainz tried to regain the position on the outside of turn 3, but he had to settle for P4 as Hamilton made his way up to an unlikely podium.
But it was Esteban Ocon and the Alpine garage that were celebrating as Ocon took his first ever career victory in Formula One. Sebastian Vettel took his second podium with Aston Martin, despite being close to Ocon at the end of the race. Hamilton’s podium finish puts him ahead of Verstappen in the championship, as Verstappen finishes in P10 and earns a single point. Pierre Gasly earned an extra point for fastest lap.
This race marks the start of the F1 summer break, meaning that fans will need to wait a month before the teams and drivers return to action in Belgium. The action will resume on the weekend of August 29.
UPDATE: Sebastian Vettel was disqualified from the race due to a fuel sample issue after the race.
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| DNF | ||
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| DNF | ||
| DNF | ||
| DNF | ||
| DNF |
