Hungarian Grand Prix: Weekend Recap

A fortnight after the British Grand Prix, Formula 1 returned to Budapest at the Hungaroring to kick start the second half of the 2024 championship. Mercedes entered this weekend following two consecutive Grand Prix victories, hoping to continue that momentum. In contrast, McLaren was hoping to bounce back from a difficult weekend in Britain, hindered by strategic errors. The first half of what is the longest season in the championship's history saw six different Grand Prix winners, and Mclaren and Max Verstappen leading the field.

Friday Practice Sessions

Starting off the weekend strong, Lando Norris showed strong one-lap pace, leading the timesheets in FP2. However, long-run data indicated that Red Bull, particularly with Max Verstappen's car, might hold a race pace advantage. Red Bull was assessing a significant new engine cover cooling upgrade on Verstappen's car, while Ferrari was testing reworked floor components to address high-speed corner bouncing issues and improve the consistency of its SF-24. The day was marked by high temperatures, peaking at 59.1°C, influencing run plans and performance.

Carlos Sainz set the fastest time in FP1 in an encouraging session for the Scuderia, but Verstappen, running on used soft tires, managed to place second. The only hindrance came in the second session when Charles Leclerc made contact with the barriers after losing control of his car exiting turn 4. Zhou Guanyu suffered a spin at the same part of the track, narrowly avoiding Red Bull driver Sergio Perez. Perez then set an early benchmark on mediums, later surpassed by George Russell and then by Norris, who ended the day fastest with a 1m17.788s. Verstappen struggled with rear tire grip and braking issues, ending FP2 second.

Long-run averages on medium tires favored Red Bull, with Perez posting the best times, and Verstappen showing impressive tire deg management. McLaren's long runs were done on hard tires, nullifying direct comparisons, but they were clearly in the mix. Ferrari showed considerable improvement following a run of difficult races. Mercedes struggled with the high temperature, a contrast to the conditions at Silverstone that enabled them to prosper.

Final Practice

In the final practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren's Lando Norris topped the timesheets with a lap of 1m16.098s, narrowly ahead of his teammate Oscar Piastri by just 0.044s. The session began unhurriedly, with Red Bull drivers having clear track time on hard tires. Max Verstappen initially set the pace with a 1m17.938s, but as other teams switched to soft tires, McLaren took the lead.

Verstappen's attempt to challenge Norris was hampered by a quarter-second loss in the middle sector and a lock-up on his final lap, leaving him in third place. Russell ended the session in fourth, while Carlos Sainz was the fastest Ferrari in fifth. Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon impressed with sixth and seventh positions, respectively, ahead of Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda. Lewis Hamilton finished tenth, just behind his Mercedes teammate, and Charles Leclerc fell outside the top ten.

Quali

To everyone’s surprise, the qualifying session began with rain, seemingly appearing out of nowhere on what was a scorching hot weekend till the very last practice session. Lando Norris secured his third Formula 1 pole position at the Hungaroring on an eventful Saturday. The McLaren driver set the fastest time in changing weather conditions, leading a McLaren 1-2 with teammate Oscar Piastri, while Max Verstappen claimed third place. The session featured two red flags and a last-minute scramble, adding to an intense qualifying session.

Q1

The first qualifying session began under light rain, creating tricky conditions for the drivers. As the track was merely damp and projected to dry up soon, everyone opted for slick tires. Lewis Hamilton set the initial pace with a time of 1:17.087, while Logan Sargeant briefly brought out yellow flags after hitting the barriers in turn 1. The American driver was lucky to drive away from the incident in his Williams FW46. The session was then dramatically halted when Sergio Perez crashed his Red Bull into the barriers, bringing out the red flags. An untimely incident given the speculation regarding his future in F1, the Mexican driver was knocked out of Q1 for the fourth time this season.

As the session resumed, the rain had intensified but quickly dried off, allowing drivers to attempt another run. Daniel Ricciardo surprised everyone by leaping to the top of the timesheets, proving the extent of the track evolution, while George Russell was eliminated as he wasn't fueled sufficiently to do a lap when the track was in the ideal window. Perez ended up in P16, unable to continue due to his crash. Russell’s early lap time was insufficient, placing him in P17, with Zhou Guanyu, Ocon, and Gasly filling the last positions after Alpine misjudged the track evolution.

Q2

In the second qualifying session, Carlos Sainz was the first to set a time on used soft tires. Max Verstappen quickly established the benchmark with a lap of 1:15.770 on fresh tires. Oscar Piastri followed closely, just 0.015 seconds behind. As the session neared its end, Valtteri Bottas, Sargeant, Alex Albon, Hulkenberg, and Ricciardo were in danger of elimination. A queue of cars formed in the pit lane, leading to frustration for some drivers, especially Hulkenberg. The Haas driver got eliminated in Q2 by just one-hundredth of a second as he struggled with traffic on track, hindered by traffic in the pitlane as he entered at the very end of the queue. Norris topped the session, while Bottas, Albon, Sargeant, and Magnussen were eliminated.

Q3

The final qualifying session started with Verstappen setting the initial pace on new soft tires. However, Lando Norris soon took provisional pole with a mighty lap of 1:15.227, despite the light rain beginning to fall again. Piastri slotted into third place, while Leclerc and Hamilton completed their first laps. The McLaren seemed to be on rails, and the Mercedes was going better than it had in the much warmer conditions on Friday.

The session was interrupted by a red flag when Yuki Tsunoda dramatically went airborne after going wide exiting turn 5. After the RB car was towed away and the debris had been cleared, the session resumed with just two and a half minutes remaining, and all drivers, bar Max Verstappen, headed back on track. At this point, the track was comparatively slower, and no one seemed to be improving. Carlos Sainz was unable to set another lap, but Ricciardo improved his time, finishing P9. Piastri finished just 0.022 seconds behind Lando, securing a McLaren front-row lockout. Verstappen held onto third place, with Sainz, Hamilton, and Leclerc completing the top six. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll optimized their possession of an extra set of soft tires for a pleasing result for the Aston Martin team.

Race

The 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix delivered a thrilling spectacle that only adds to what has been an incredibly exciting and ever-unpredictable season. Most remarkably, it marked the emergence of a seventh different winner this season, Oscar Piastri, who claimed his maiden Grand Prix victory. The race was also notable for Lewis Hamilton, who celebrated his 200th podium finish in Formula 1, becoming the only driver in history to do so.

The Sunday started with frustration for polesitter Lando Norris, who had throttle issues on his car merely 20 minutes before the start of the grand prix. Fortunately, the McLaren crew did a phenomenal job fixing the issue, and Norris was set to start from pole position for the third time in his F1 career.

The lights went out and the first corner saw several race-defining incidents. With a better start than his teammate, Oscar Piastri, starting P2, exited the first corner in first place. Lando Norris, initially defending against his teammate, eventually had to defend against Verstappen on the outside, briefly losing third place to Lewis Hamilton, but by the end of the second corner, he was P3. Max Verstappen ran wide in the first corner and claimed second place, the reigning champion blaming Norris for pushing him off the track. Verstappen conceded P2 to Norris as he had gained the position off-track, adding fuel to a fire that was growing in that RB20's cockpit. Further Back, Carlos Sainz lost positions fighting Hamilton and the Astons, while his teammate Charles Leclerc had moved up to P5.

Oscar Piastri maintained the lead for over half race distance, controlling the pace and extending the gap to his teammate. The Aussie drove a flawless race, bar an off-track excursion at turn 12.

The end of both stints saw Verstappen closing in on Lewis Hamilton, and the latter having to defend on older tires. Hamilton would pit early to gain track position on Verstappen, meaning his tires were much older and hence degraded when Verstappen caught up to him. Meanwhile, the likes of Leclerc and Norris had also opted for an undercut on their rivals, with strategic decisions being extremely crucial in this particular race.

Lap 46 out of 70 saw the most crucial moment of the Grand Prix, with Lando Norris diving into the pits. He was within the undercut window to teammate Oscar Piastri, meaning that when Piastri pitted 2 laps later, Lando Norris went past Piastri, who had led more than 40 laps of the race. Meanwhile, in P5, Max Verstappen, undercut by Lewis Hamilton in P3 and Charles Leclerc in P4 expressed his frustration with the car and the team's strategy on what was turning out to be a poor result for the Dutchman. Eventually, on lap 47, he managed to overtake the Scuderia Ferrari driver to take P4.

The last 15 laps saw tensions rise in the Mclaren pit wall regarding the lead of the race. Oscar Piastri, who had nailed the start and led the majority of the race, had been undercut by his teammate. Norris did not want to concede the victory to his teammate as the leading Mclaren in the championship. The gap between the two was gradually growing, as Norris ignored team orders to save the tires.

Then came the moment that was perhaps the highlight of the race. Verstappen, having closed the gap to his old rival, Hamilton, in front of him, was keen to secure third place. He had tried on multiple occasions prior, to no avail. On lap 63, Max Verstappen dive-bombed Lewis Hamilton, locking up his tires and making contact with the Mercedes which left him momentarily airborne and into the runoff. When he returned to the racetrack, he was behind Leclerc, back in P5. This moment was a culmination of Verstappen's growing frustration with nearly every aspect of his Sunday, and was a race-ruining incident that saw his lead in the Championship reduce even further. Verstappen blamed Hamilton, saying he moved under braking, and his race engineer, frustrated with Verstappen’s complaints, told him that it was childish to fight on the radio.

With 3 laps to go, race leader Lando Norris was told by his race engineer "The way to win a championship is not by yourself, it's with a team. You're gonna need Oscar, and you're gonna need the team". At the end of the main straight, he backed off, and let his teammate through to take the lead.

The man from Melbourne, whose career in Formula 1 began with an infamous tweet announcing he would not be driving for Alpine, has driven an excellent 35 races thus far for the Mclaren Team. And on Sunday of the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, he took his team to the top step of the podium with his maiden grand prix victory. Lando Norris followed his teammate to secure Mclaren's first 1-2 since Monza 2021. The Hungarian Grand Prix stands as a testament to Mclaren's prowess as they close the gap in both championships in the second half of the season.