Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle reviews the Hungarian GP weekend as Max Verstappen delivered Red Bull a record 12th consecutive win to extend his championship lead, McLaren claimed another podium, Lewis Hamilton was back on pole position and a new qualifying format was trialled
Monday 24 July 2023 21:05, UK
Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle delivers his expert verdict on the Hungarian GP weekend as Max Verstappen and Red Bull win again, Lando Norris claims another podium finish and Lewis Hamilton ends his pole position drought.
Max Verstappen and Red Bull continue to control this season in dominant fashion, to my mind reminiscent of Nigel Mansell in a 1992 Williams and Michael Schumacher in a 2002 Ferrari. At least the championship will not be won in July or August as we witnessed back then, of course with many fewer races in the season and a different points system.
Just as it seemed the pack were beginning to catch the Milton Keynes Speed Masters, Max then wins the race by 33 seconds. He described the car as a pure pleasure which made him smile inside his crash helmet, and we even heard his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase calling on the radio just to break the silence and check how he was doing. It was his 24th victory since the beginning of last season if you're thinking this is all feeling a bit familiar, and his 44th overall.
Toto Wolff at Mercedes described this performance as if the winning combo made everyone else look as if they were in Formula 2.
Mercedes themselves had a curious if largely positive weekend. Lewis Hamilton secured an impressive and very popular pole position by hooking up a tidy lap under pressure on an improving track when Verstappen had failed to find time in a car which apparently was balanced more towards a race set-up, which could not be questioned a day later. Lewis wasn't fastest in any sector, and wasn't even top three in one sector, but his class shone through.
A so-so start for Lewis gave Max the inside line into the first corner and after a mild scuffle for the lead of the race, he would simply command proceedings thereafter. Lewis also lost out to both McLarens, led by the increasingly-impressive Oscar Piastri. More of McLaren in a moment.
George Russell in the sister Mercedes was back in 18th after being released onto the track late in the first part of a trial qualifying format, and found himself in a lot of traffic. He was also caught napping a little by the likes of Lando Norris and others as they jumped the queue and doubled George's problems. He missed the cut on an incredibly tight grid where every team and driver were performing well.
In the race the Mercedes had very variable stages of performance but on low fuel towards the end both drivers were simply flying along. Hamilton almost relieved Sergio Perez of third place but ultimately would have the frustration of starting on pole but not being on the podium. Russell would conversely steal sixth from the two Ferraris from his 18th slot on the grid.
Perez from a disappointing ninth on the grid would have an impressive drive to the podium which was determined and aggressive in equal measure. It was just the performance he needed for his own confidence as well as his reputation. His overtakes were tough, not with desperation but with total steeliness, and his speed was good.
I described it in commentary as a statement drive. He showed that he can just about keep his head in the shadow of Verstappen's speed and results, which few others could do, but he still needs to be bothering the Dutchman's mirrors at the end of the races. But let's not forget his brilliant victories just a few months ago in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.
McLaren's rich vein of form since their upgrades very much continued, and that's on three completely different track layouts which bodes well for the rest of the season. Lando drove with controlled aggression all weekend, it was a pleasure to watch him trackside. He's responded perfectly to this new opportunity and scored consecutive podiums for the first time in F1. Tellingly he was disappointed not to be on pole position and was the only front-running driver who managed to save a new set of medium compound tyres in qualifying.
Shadowing him, and even leading him for a while, was rookie Piastri who once again looked as if he was born to be at the front of F1 races. He sneaked perfectly past Hamilton and Norris in the first corner when they were consigned to a wider line and even looked as if he may take the lead. Team Piastri will have been surprised that Norris was given the first pit stop and undercut opportunity which swapped the McLarens around.
Norris thereafter looked faster anyway and this was compounded when Piastri ran wide in Turn Two fighting with Perez and damaged his floor. The stewards looked at the incident and, in my view, quite rightly took no further action. Oscar's manager, the ever-pragmatic and no-nonsense Mark Webber, will I suspect be advising him to pick his battles more carefully and not fight the impossible.
McLaren have a fine and future-proof line-up there if they can keep them both.
Ferrari had an ultimately disappointing weekend in seventh and eighth and a minute behind the leader. Charles Leclerc suffered a five-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane by just 0.7kph which rather sums up their luck at the moment. He also had a poor pit stop which further dented his chances and once again his frustration over team radio was plain to hear.
Carlos Sainz started on soft compound tyres which he used to very good effect by gaining five places off the line but ultimately it would compromise his race. Ferrari were the fourth fastest car on race day and were out-qualified by two of their customer teams in Alfa Romeo and Haas. I can imagine their debriefs after Budapest and heading directly to Spa were somewhat tense…
It's difficult to work out how and why Aston Martin have fallen from main challengers to Red Bull to ninth and 10th some 75 seconds behind the winner, and fifth fastest car. They have clearly been overtaken by effective updates at other teams but I can't help but feel they've gone the wrong way somewhere. There's talk that the more robust tyre construction from Silverstone has hurt them, but this decline was apparent before then. Let's hope they can sort it out quickly with changes of their own, as we need them back in the hunt.
Alfa Romeo were an impressive fifth and seventh on the grid but a poor start from Zhou Guanyu also ended up compromising his team-mate Valtteri Bottas, and Zhou then went sliding into the back of Daniel Ricciardo's AlphaTauri for his comeback race to be hampered too.
But that was nothing compared to Alpine who lost both cars in the ensuing very heavy contact between the helpless Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly for their second consecutive double DNF.
It's difficult to know how to rate Ricciardo's race but he immediately outqualified Yuki Tsunoda.
A new format for the weekend provided two fewer sets of dry tyres per driver, and the 11 remaining sets only included four sets of soft tyres instead of the usual eight. In qualifying all drivers would be obliged to use hard compound tyres in Q1, medium compound in Q2, and soft tyres in Q3 for those who got that far.
It's difficult to judge how it worked for a number of reasons. Friday was wet so the concern that teams would do less dry running is unproven either way. Also the field was so impressively close on lap times again the results are skewed, compounded by the fact that the track was yielding significantly more grip during the hour qualifying session.
It did mix up the grid but I'm not sure that's what we needed here, a bit like Monaco. It also means that we have three different types of qualifying now along with the normal format and the Sprint Shootout, and two types of races with the Sprint and the traditional GP. All with different tyre allocations which can lead to confusion all round.
I'm very open-minded to changes, but I don't think the sustainability card of tyre saving is powerful enough on this one to warrant the changes, given that the current qualifying format has worked very well since 2010. In any event we could just reduce the number of tyres for a GP weekend to 11 sets, and also have a look at how many unused sets of intermediates and wet tyres get wasted.
Other sports such as football and tennis have kept the basics the same for decades and it doesn't seem to harm the audience engagement, and this has a feel of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'. It'll be tried for a second time later this year.
Spectacular Spa is next up, and it looks like being pretty wet judging by the early forecasts.
MB
