A perfect Piastri, McLaren less so: it's still a one-two in Budapest!

On his 35th race in Formula 1, Oscar Piastri finally wins his first career Grand Prix! A dominant performance from him, built from the start by putting teammate Lando Norris and Max Verstappen behind him. Despite serious indecisiveness by the McLaren pitwall which could have given the victory to Norris, in the end it is the Australian who triumphs: let's find out how in our usual analysis!

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How we finished in Hungary. McLaren's 1-2, Perez and Russell fighting back to the points and a retirement for Gasly#F1 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/mzf87ZsGQW

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 21, 2024

For McLaren, a victory is never in doubt, but more decisiveness is needed in drivers' management

Once the race is over, it's easy to rewind the tape of what happened and identify the start as the moment in which Oscar Piastri built his greatest chances of victory: in the long stretch of straight leading to Turn 1 he arrived alongside the poleman Norris, while the car of Max Verstappen was becoming cumbersome on the left... By taking advantage of the inside line, Oscar was able to gain the leadership of the race, while behind him the Dutchman from Red Bull was forced to give up second position to Lando, after having stolen it from him by going off the track right in Turn 1.

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

At that moment we would all have expected an easy comeback by the Englishman on his Australian teammate from McLaren, but surprisingly this wasn't the case: the first stint was a performance masterpiece by Piastri, who in addition to lapping on average a tenth quicker than Norris, he kept an enviable consistency, a factor that allowed him to reach the conclusion of the same stint with Medium tyres still in excellent condition.

Hungarian GP - Race pace held by Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris

Right there, however, we witnessed an unfair strategy call by the McLaren pitwall: as we know, an unwritten rule that applies within the teams in Formula 1 is that the driver in front of his teammate and has priority over the latter in terms of pitting order, in order to avoid any undercut risk. Well, the Woking team's strategists opted to bring in Norris first (on lap 17) and Piastri only one lap later, slightly worried about the possibility of an undercut by Hamilton...

Everything was resolved with Norris who found himself closer to P1, but without any position change, and the central stint (for both on Hard tyres) continued with little to say for both, except a slight recovery of the Briton on the race leader: in other words, switching from Medium to Hard the small gap that Oscar had inflicted on Lando was returned to him in equal measure.

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

The episode from which so much controversy arose occurred during the second pitstop round, which - even more uselessly than the first pitstop (given that Hamilton was in P3, 10 seconds behind the McLaren duo) - once again saw the pitwall favouring Lando over Oscar, with the aggravating circumstance of delaying the latter's pitstop by two laps (lap 48 against 46), instead of just one! Due to two laps too many on worn tyres, the lead of the race passed to car number 4, with Norris who at that point refused to give up the first position he had gained in a somewhat fortuitous way.

The following laps were a bit of a farce as far as the communications between Will Joseph, Lando's race engineer, and the latter were concerned: the former urged him to give up the position to restore the situation prior to the second pitstop, while the second continued to set better laptimes, digging a gap of as much as 6.0 seconds on Piastri (wanting to demonstrate that first position would still be within his reach, regardless of strategic favoritism). Only 3 laps from the end there was the position change, and Piastri was able to deservedly win his first race in Formula 1. Obviously the whole lot of controversies made the success of the Australian a little bittersweet, whose loyalty to the team - and whose performance today - cannot be discussed in any way...

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

In summary, this strategic (and mediatic) mess has in a certain way ruined the Sunday of the Woking team, who, playing more consistently, would have enjoyed more what is in any case a historic day. From a Drivers' World Championship perspective, in fact, Norris's gap from Verstappen is 78 points - with 11 races still to go, while in the Constructors' Championship they overtook Ferrari, and the gap from Red Bull is quantifiable in 51 points: bringing home both Championships will be a difficult task, but given the competitiveness of the MCL38 it no longer seems impossible!

With Red Bull and Verstappen under the most pressure so far, Budapest could be key to their season!

Based on the classification order, it would now be up to talk about Lewis Hamilton, on the 200th podium of his career thanks to the P3 achieved today, and Charles Leclerc, who with P4 at the finish line saves the day in yet another defensive weekend for his Ferrari.

Leaving all this aside for the moment, a much more important theme emerges from today's Grand Prix, linked to the difficulties that Verstappen is having with his RB20. His Hungarian GP ends with a fifth position which in the best case scenario could have been a third, but what is surprising - more than the 5 points left on the table by Max - is the nervous approach that the World Champion showed for the entire course of the race.

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Immediately after placing himself in third position, an exchange began via radio with his track engineer Gianpiero Lambiase: the two had objections on every aspect, from car performance (which left for much of the time Verstappen struggling with understeer), to the management of pitstops phases (with Lambiase ironically blaming Max for having been unkind to the tyres in the out lap following the last pitstop) up to the racing approach, as emerged in the duel in Turn 2 with Lewis Hamilton, where the Red Bull pitwall refused to lodge a protest against the Mercedes driver as they considered their driver's protests excessive for having been pushed wide by the 7-time World Champion.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

This tense atmosphere, which actually began some races ago, resulted in a very heavy collision with Lewis Hamilton again, when on lap 63 - in the rush of impatience - Verstappen outbraked himself into Turn 1, down the inside of his historic rival, so much so that he lost direction of his RB20. The collision between Lewis' right front tyre and Max's left rear literally lifted the latter off the ground: incredibly, there was no retirement for the Dutchman, who as a result of the contact only lost his position in favour of Charles Leclerc, finishing fifth.

Hungarian GP - Analysis of the stints completed by the drivers of the top teams

Looking at the current situation from a broader perspective, the technical advantage that McLaren currently has acquired (clearly visible from the graph above, relating to today's race) is making Verstappen nervous, because he probably fears seeing the World Title slipping away from him, as only a few races ago seemed firmly in his hands: however, I believe that precisely in this difficult moment, he should rally around his team and try to maximize the result whenever it comes to limiting the damage compared to Lando Norris, currently his most accredited rival.

Mercedes still ahead of Ferrari, but Leclerc could have finished on the podium

Returning to the race of Hamilton and the two Ferraris, as mentioned, we cannot fail to praise the English champion for his masterful conduct which took him from P5 at the start to P3 at the finish line. Lewis' race was run on a two-stop strategy, but using Medium compound tyres only in the opening stint, whereas most of the scheduled laps were then completed using two sets of Hards.

Hungarian GP - Race pace held by Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz

If, on the one hand, this allowed him to often attack (as in the case of the first pitstop, where he performed an undercut on Verstappen), it's equally true that this exposed him to a performance drop at the end of each stint, as can be seen very well from the graph above, in which his laptimes are compared with the two Ferraris and the World Champion.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Globally evaluating the performance provided by the Mercedes W15 today, also considering the high temperatures that usually hamper the English-German team, we can state with absolute certainty that it would have been impossible to do better than this: the 15 points achieved by Lewis are therefore the maximum haul that today's technical context made available to the winner of the last Grand Prix at Silverstone.

On the other hand, considering what Leclerc and his Ferrari showed off today, Toto Wolff and his team can be doubly happy, because an analysis of the race's unfolding shows how the Monegasque was second only to the two McLarens: this is further demonstrated by the laps with which Charles started his second stint (on Hard tyres): his pace in that moment was even unbeatable, to the point of allowing him to gain as much as 9 seconds on the Hamilton-Verstappen duo ahead of him...

Photo: Motorsport Images

Unfortunately, however, his comeback ended right there, due to a strategy blunder by the Ferrari strategists, who called him back into the pits after only 17 laps covered on the Hard tyres: the idea of ​​an undercut could have been doable (and in fact the track position on the Red Bull was momentarily gained), but this move required the driver of car number 16 to cover almost half the race on the last set of Mediums available, an arduous undertaking to say the least. I therefore believe that the possibility of aiming for the podium was lost for strategic reasons, although we cannot have proof of how it would have gone with a more intelligent timing of the second pitstop.

Hungarian GP - Race pace held by Sergio Perez and George Russell

Seventh and eighth position are the prerogative - respectively - of Sergio Perez and George Russell, the two drivers who had suffered a sensational elimination in Q1 during qualifying. Taking advantage of a first stint on the long-standing Hards, the comeback of both went hand in hand: as can be seen from the graph above, George in his W15 often "tracked" the laptimes set by the RB20 in front of him, but without being able to overtake him. At the chequered flag, probably the only consolation for Russell (rather than the eighth place finish) is having achieved the fastest lap of the race: an additional point favored by an off-sync strategy with the rest of the grid, but still an indication of Mercedes' competitiveness at this stage of the season!

Hungarian GP - Personal best laptime for top teams' drivers

Tsunoda king of the midfield, Haas loses ground after a brilliant start to the race

In the midfield we witnessed a race, as often happens, very hard-fought even if not in favour of the cameras. The one who comes out best is Yuki Tsunoda, who, showing off a "king of the midfield" pace, takes ninth place at the finish line and gives his team two precious points.

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

This stage haul will be particularly important in the fight in the Constructors' World Championship against Haas, currently 6 points away from sixth position in the hands of Visa CashApp RB. Haas itself is among the negative surprises of this Hungarian Grand Prix, after a couple of weekends in which they had made such a leap forward in terms of competitiveness as to threaten the position of the team from Faenza. Today Hulkenberg's race, despite an ultra-early pit stop (on lap 3), seemed to be promising, to the point that the German was destined to finish in the points.

However, the aggressive strategy chosen put him in the position of having to do a very careful tyre management, a factor that made him easy prey for the VCARB and the Aston Martins (with Stroll in P10). Outside the top ten, in addition to the aforementioned Haas, we find the Williams, the Alpines (with Gasly forced to retire) and the two Kick Saubers, still with zero points in the Constructors' standings.

In a few days the Red Bull vs McLaren fight continues at Spa-Francorchamps!

The hectic pace of this 2024 World Championship will bring the Formula 1 Circus to Belgium in just a few days, where they will race on the beautiful Spa-Francorchamps: a proper track that is still very selective in terms of driving skills, but which will also give a better clue about the performance levels by the first two teams in the standings, as well as the progress that at Ferrari they're making in solving the porpoising issue that reappeared some races ago...

With the next race weekend so close at hand, all I have to do is meet you next Saturday, once again on these pages, to find out more about what qualifying at Spa will have to tell us. See you soon!