In the round-up: Sergio Perez says he scored the best result possible in the Hungarian Grand Prix yesterday despite his car not being fully sorted after his crash in qualifying.
In brief
Car “not 100%” after crash – Perez
After crashing out in Q1 on Saturday, Perez climbed nine places to finish seventh. He doubts he could have finished any higher under the circumstances. “Today was the maximum we could have done,” he said. “So that’s a positive sign.
“The pace was strong today. We got overtaken by George [Russell] but we managed to beat him with the strategy, with the pace. From that point on I think it was a maximum we could have done.”
Red Bull performed extensive repairs after his heavy impact with the turn eight barrier and Perez isn’t sure his car was performing entirely as it should.
“At the start of the race we were stuck with the traffic, it was really difficult to manage,” he said. “I think the car was not 100% from the crash. So, something to to review.”
Sauber still not quick enough for points
Valtteri Bottas praised Sauber’s progress after his first race in their upgraded car, but says they still aren’t quick enough to challenge for points. He fell from 12th on the grid to finish 16th.“Initially it felt okay,” he said. “But then, when things started to kind of stabilise a little bit, I figured out we couldn’t keep up with the pace of the RBs. We left the [pit] stop quite late to try to have a tyre advantage but as always here, it’s not easy to make progress even with a fresher tyre.
“If I compare to the last events, it seems like the pace is a bit better, but still not quite enough to get in the top 10 on merit. At the moment we still need kind of a miracle to happen to get in the top ten. So, we just need to keep progressing.”
Tsunoda thanks mechanics for repairs
Yuki Tsunoda paid tribute to his mechanics after taking his repaired car to ninth place.
“I’m definitely very happy with my race and obviously first of all big the credit to the team and mechanics who repaired very fast and precisely overnight,” said Tsunoda. “Without that, I wouldn’t be here.”
Penalty hands Jaguar title
The Formula E manufacturers’ title changed hands after the chequered flag dropped on the season finale yesterday. Porsche originally took the title but Antonio Felix da Costa was given a five-second time penalty for causing a collision with Nick Cassiy, dropping him from fifth to a point-less 13th. Jaguar therefore beat them to the title by four points.
Van Hoepen disqualified
“The team representative explained that they have conducted a preliminary investigation into the cause of being below the minimum weight and found [the car’s] water pressure dropped significantly after the safety car period during the feature race,” the stewards reported. “The team justified that a loss of liquid from the car’s cooling system is or may be the cause attributing to being below the minimum weight. The stewards thanked the team representative for bringing forward this explanation and justification.
“The steward reminded the team representative of the International Court of Appeal’s (ICA) long-standing and consistent jurisprudence that the obligation to comply with the technical regulations and the liability incurred as a result of noncompliance lie solely with competitors. Furthermore, the Stewards also explained that the long-standing sanction and ICA jurisprudence for a technical compliance has been a sanction of disqualification.”
Van Hoepen’s disqualification promoted Noel Leon to second place and championship contender Leonardo Fornaroli to third. Mari Boya inherited the final point for 10th.
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Links
Audi's 2026 Formula One entry: smart or foolhardy? (Top Gear)
'The Sauber team is 10th out of 10 with no points. The direction will definitely be positive.'
IndyCar round 12: Indy Toronto (IndyCar via YouTube)
Formula E round 16: London EPrix race two (Formula E via YouTube)
Formula Regional Europe race 12: Paul Ricard (Formula Regional Europe via YouTube)
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
Thankful for the Aero screen or else I wouldn’t be writing this right now. Sorry to my team and all involved by no fault of their own. As for the incident… maybe next time at least throw a local yellow when a car is in the most dangerous spot possible @IndyCar ? Just a thought pic.twitter.com/KGQIEkvsQP
— Pato O'Ward (@PatricioOWard) July 21, 2024
Today will be the first race @MarioAndretti and I watch together. That’s wild!
— Marco Andretti (@MarcoAndretti) July 21, 2024
Wins in 2024 so far:@Max33Verstappen: 7@LewisHamilton, @LandoNorris, @GeorgeRussell63, @Charles_Leclerc, @Carlossainz55 and @OscarPiastri: 6 #F1 #HungarianGP #RaceFans pic.twitter.com/0QQPoBr02q
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) July 21, 2024
In the last two races Alpine have shown no pace, committed tactical errors in qualifying and the race and had two technical retirements compared to one for all of their rivals put together.
Not the most compelling pitch for @Carlossainz55's services.#F1 #HungarianGP #RaceFans
— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) July 21, 2024
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Comment of the day
Norris waited too long to let Piastri by, says @Venedikov:
The team were right to ask for switch of positions after the last stops – they protected the one-two, inevitably wronging Oscar in the process.
But to me what happened next is on Lando – he should have let Piastri ahead much sooner and then pile the pressure. Of course everything is clearer and easier in hindsight, not in the heat of the moment.
@Venedikov
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Phillip C’De Baca and Matthew!
On this day in motorsport
- 40 years ago today Niki Lauda won the British Grand Prix after a gearbox fault put his team mate Alain Prost out
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd July 2024, 6:45
Surprising, given they had plenty of time to fully fix the car, not to mention teams usually manage so between qualifying & the race.
Keith’s tweet couldn’t be more spot-on.
Operational & reliability sides have been their two biggest weakness in the two most recent events, even if their general pace hasn’t been great either.
notagrumpyfan
22nd July 2024, 7:51
There was no need for them to pit Lando first.
To save face they could’ve told Lando to go even faster and let him 3-stop for an extra point.
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
22nd July 2024, 7:57
As others have said, Piastri wouldn’t have been pushing in his final stint as he was just expecting Lando to wave him through.
As a result, I don’t think you can read anything from Lando’s stronger pace. He was just out to prove a point, and I don’t really blame him!
Good to see McLaren, and Lando, do the right thing though.
McLaren for the Constructors Championship and (maybe) Lando for a late surge in the Drivers Championship?!
slowmo (@slowmo)
22nd July 2024, 14:14
Piastri was trying to push to catch Norris but couldn’t, the race engineer for Norris said as much that he couldn’t keep pace with him so Norris had to back off and let him through. Norris did prove his point that he was much faster and Piastri admitted he didn’t have the pace of Norris at the time. That was also why Piastri apologized after the race that he couldn’t have caught Norris as that would have made the switch more of a formality.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
22nd July 2024, 8:41
Respect to Lando for doing the right thing, even though it must have felt terrible.
We don’t need any more ignorant ego-maniacs on the grid (and no – I’m not just talking about one person when I say that!).
I’m looking forwards to the Team Radio articles Keith and Will, but I guess there is about a months worth of work sorting that lot out? ;)
Red Andy (@red-andy)
22nd July 2024, 8:49
Almost as much work as the FOM censor had processing Verstappen’s messages yesterday.
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
22nd July 2024, 10:37
Bottas first stint was quite impressive. He stayed easily ahead of Russell and Perez and even pulled away before his pitstop. Maybe they should have tried to onestop because he rejoined in a bunch of cars and wasn’t able to use his true pace from then on.
Nick T.
22nd July 2024, 12:34
Bottas is, genuinely, dynamite when he needs a contract. Maybe teams should sign him one race a time. Like Senna once made McLaren do.
slowmo (@slowmo)
22nd July 2024, 14:20
There could also be a case of Russell and Perez were tyre saving and managing their races to use their grip at the optimum moments to take full advantage where as Bottas used his grip to maintain a pace advantage which cost him then in terms of when he had to pit, where that put him and how his race then panned out afterwards.
Any driver can look good for a stint when taken out of context of their entire race.
stefano (@alfa145)
22nd July 2024, 15:44
COTD is spot on as I expressed myself on other comment. A driver like Alonso or Red Bull Vettel would probably have anticipated things and let Piastri by straight away. 20 laps to try and overtake, regardless of team asking not to do so. Way better to the win than stabbing everyone in the back by not giving back the position.
frood19 (@frood19)
22nd July 2024, 22:53
Brilliant from Perez – what to review? How about, don’t crash out in qualifying every other weekend.