Brendan Lines July 20, 2020 09:30am

Lewis Hamilton was in a class of his own taking victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix, its Hamilton’s second successive win for the season, finishing ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who salvaged second place after disaster struck the Dutchman before the start of the race.

Hamilton lead from pole position to take the win, the Brit now matches Michael Shumacher’s record for the most wins at a single venue.

“We had great pace today, brilliant pit stops, a fantastic strategy and then, as I was managing those Mediums for a long, long time, at the end it was the perfect time to get on fresh tyres and take that extra point for fastest lap. Everything has just been on point throughout the weekend, so we need to try and keep it up,” Hamilton said.

The rain came early across the Hungaroring forcing the field to tread lightly in the greasy conditions swapping to intermediate tyres as the track dried for the race start.

The varied conditions, caught out Verstappen on his install lap sliding off and damaging his front left suspension before forming up on the grid.

Red Bull mechanics worked frantically replacing the front wing and dismantling the front suspension to change a steering arm right up until the seconds before to warm-up lap to avoid a penalty and save Verstappen from potential embarrassment as a non starter.

Vertappen took the wide line around the Ferrari’s ahead of him into Turn 1 for the start, jumping from P7 to P3 by Turn 3, pitting for mediums in the first phase of pitstops proved the right tyre strategy, as the Red Bull came away with an unlikely podium finish in P2.

Second placed Max Verstappen celebrates with team members – Image: Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

“This podium is definitely dedicated to my mechanics. I thought the race was over before it had even started. I braked, locked a wheel, came off the brakes and tried to brake again but went straight on into the wall on the out lap. I couldn’t believe it but I managed to reverse out of the wall and get to the grid.

“To be second here between the two dominant Mercedes cars is an unbelievable result and we did not expect it yesterday after qualifying and such a difficult weekend. We want to try to close the gap to Mercedes, they are really dominant at the moment so it will be very hard to beat them but we won’t stop trying,” Verstappen said after the race.

Finn Valtteri Bottas’ fought his way back from a horrible start, he was held up by the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, passing the Ferrari on lap 10.

Mercedes pitted Bottas on lap 34 to undercut the Racing Point of Lance Stroll releasing Bottas was instructed to lap in the 1:18s in order to chase down Verstappen, Bottas simply ran out of laps and would have to be content with P3.

“I lost some ground there and that made the race very difficult for me, as I was fighting right to the very end. It was pretty close with Max and I think the gamble to pit late on was definitely worth taking, as it gave me the difference in tyre life. But it didn’t quite pay off today,” he said.

Haas made the strategic move of changing drivers Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean to the medium slick tyres, starting from the pit lane, finding themselves as high as P3 and P4 respectively as the other teams rushed the pitman to also change to slicks.

But after the race stewards deemed the teams call over its radio channel breached formation lap protocols and were handed a 10-second time penalty to both cars.

Haas’ Kevin Magnussen was demoted from P9 to P10, still scoring the teams first point for the season.

Racing Point couldn’t improve on its row two lockout as Lance Stroll finished in P4 undercut by Mercedes during their final pitstop, Sergio Perez battled for P7 behind the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.

Vettel’s P6 finish was a welcome result after teams ‘own goal’ DNF last week, teammate Charles Leclerc finishes in P11 outside the points.

But things might have been different for Vettel, who’s pit stop was compromised remaining stationary for over +9.0s as traffic would not allow his Ferrari to be released back into the pit lane.

Alex Albon’s day was damage control from a disappointing qualifying in P13, the Thai driver fought his way past Vettel on lap 67, Albon now has a nervous wait as race stewards investigate wether Red Bull artificially dried the track surface of his grid slot before the race.

McLarens’ of Carlos Sainz salvaged some points in P9, the high downforce Hungaroring never seemed to suit the MCL35 struggling for balance all weekend, teammate Lando Norris was way back on his best in P13.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo started from P11 to finish P8, the third race in a row the team has finished P8 this season.

A DNF for Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly capped off a forgettable weekend for the Frenchman, teammate Daniil Kyvat settled for P12.

Despite his impressive P12 in qualifying, Williams’ George Russell’s race didn’t live up to expectations finishing P18, while a puncture and spin for Nicholas Latifi saw him P19 +5laps down.

For the first time this season Hamilton now leads the championship and just five victories shy of Schumacher’s record of 91 career wins.

 

Full race results:

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	70	1:36:12.473	26
2	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA	70	+8.702s	18
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	70	+9.452s	15
4	18	Lance Stroll	RACING POINT BWT MERCEDES	70	+57.579s	12
5	23	Alexander Albon	RED BULL RACING HONDA	70	+78.316s	10
6	5	Sebastian Vettel	FERRARI	69	+1 lap	8
7	11	Sergio Perez	RACING POINT BWT MERCEDES	69	+1 lap	6
8	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RENAULT	69	+1 lap	4
9	55	Carlos Sainz	MCLAREN RENAULT	69	+1 lap	2
10	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	69	+1 lap	1
11	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	69	+1 lap	0
12	26	Daniil Kvyat	ALPHATAURI HONDA	69	+1 lap	0
13	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN RENAULT	69	+1 lap	0
14	31	Esteban Ocon	RENAULT	69	+1 lap	0
15	7	Kimi Räikkönen	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	69	+1 lap	0
16	8	Romain Grosjean	HAAS FERRARI	69	+1 lap	0
17	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	69	+1 lap	0
18	63	George Russell	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	69	+1 lap	0
19	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	65	+5 laps	0
NC	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI HONDA	15	DNF	0

Note – Hamilton scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race. Magnussen and Grosjean received 10-second time penalties for use of driver aids during the formation lap. The classification of both Racing Point cars is provisional, subject to the outcome of any decision concerning a protest over their legality from the Renault team.