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Rate the race: 2018 Hungarian Grand Prix

2018 Hungarian Grand Prix

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What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Hungarian Grand Prix.

RaceFans has held polls on every F1 race since 2008 to find out which fans thought of each round of the season.

Join in the latest poll and give your verdict on the race: 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.

What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:

Rate the 2018 Hungarian Grand Prix out of 10

  • 10 (1%)
  • 9 (2%)
  • 8 (9%)
  • 7 (31%)
  • 6 (28%)
  • 5 (17%)
  • 4 (7%)
  • 3 (3%)
  • 2 (1%)
  • 1 (2%)

Total Voters: 265

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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74 comments on “Rate the race: 2018 Hungarian Grand Prix”

  1. Very boring race…

  2. Kyle (@hammerheadgb)
    29th July 2018, 15:54

    Decent 2nd quarter, exciting ending, some strategic interest throughout. Just about good for a 7.

  3. 5/10. Battles that were supposed to materialize didn’t. A bit of excitement at the end but it was just putting lipstick on a pig.

  4. Not so great, but not the most boring either. The difference in tyre strategies/age made it more exciting. Similar to last season’s race both the quality of racing and excitement-wise.

  5. A 7. Intriguing, Bottas a stunning defence until he just lost a little too much tyre.

    Mercedes played that perfectly.

    1. No defence really, just hard to follow on this track

    2. As in they successfuly sacrificed him for Ham by covering Rai? They also gave away any chance of a 1-2 and a decent handful of constructor’s points.

      1. As in Ferrari sacrificed Raikkonen and Mercedes were forced to cover that?

        1. Exactly, Ferrari sacrifice Kimi so regularly Ferrari fans don’t even see it happening anymore.

          1. Probably true, but ferrari does not try to deny it like Merc does. 😉

          2. Ferrari fans also seen to forget -was it Austria last year?- Ferrari kept Kimi behind Vettel, despite Kimi being quicker and Vettel struggling with a wonky wheel.

  6. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    29th July 2018, 15:56

    Bit dull.

    1. Man, you seem hard to please

  7. This track really needs rain or a safety car or something to make it exciting. Still, it wasn’t too bad I guess.

    Bottas really bad end of the race. Can’t imagine what was going through his head when he had those two silly incidents.

  8. Nothing… a 5 from me.. Ferrari did everything wrong in strategy… Mercedes used their interesting tactics mode… nothing really except Gasly

  9. Now vettel will win the championship at least

    1. You talking about the ‘Driver who wins in Hungary never wins the Championship’ crap?

      Sorry to rain on your parade, but there have always going to be races like that. And eventually, someone wins it who still goes on to win the championship.

      I suggest you subscribe less to silly superstitions and live in the real world a bit.

      Schummacher won the Hungarian GP in 94, 98, 01 and 04. And took the Championship thoses years.
      Mika Hakkinen took it in 99 and the WDC that year too.

      The layouts changed a little and the cars too, but it really is a more recent thing that ‘winner at Hungary never takes the WDC’ and has had more to do with the way the cars have become more focused towards working better on some tracks than others.

      I do have to ask you and the Ferrari fans who are going on about this silly superstition, had Vettel won instead would you all be now lamenting how Seb wouldn’t be winning the championship now and he should just give up for the rest of the year?

  10. 8. I enjoyed the Tyre Strategies. There were some entertaining incidents towards the end there. Interesting things going on in the mid field.

  11. 4/10. What a boring race. i expect 5s pen for bottas. If not 2/10.

  12. Best quali of the year, worst race of the year. Literally fell asleep twice; could have equally watched the Tour de France snooze stage!

  13. boring race. 4/10. Expect a 5s pen for bottas for hitting ric.

  14. +2 for Bottas alone

  15. 6. Which is actually great for this track on a dry race.

  16. 5.

    Boring race.

    BOT is such a tool, karma got him in the end. How come he doesn’t try that kind of stuff against HAM?! So happy about it and that RIC got ahead, but it’s still a shame he finished the race. Also weird how he wasn’t penalised. He’s just the joker in the Mercedes team, perfect tool to help HAM win the title. It’s obvious he’s just no.2 and Mercedes don’t allow him to win the races, excepting the cases when HAM is too far behind, just to prevent Ferrari from collecting max points. They just compromised his race completely by pitting him early trying to cover RAI. When you’re trying to cover P4, it’s obvious you’re aiming at 1st position. By setting the FL when he got into VET’s pit window, he just proved he was cruising until then and was just pushing the Ferraris back to allow HAM run with the win. He better go home, ’cause unlike RAI, he’s not at the end of his carreer…

    Ferrari botched it up too, again, with VET pit-stop. Don’t know, but they don’t seem to learn at all. It was such a bad decision to pit VET exactly when he just cleared the backmarkers and BOT got into his pit window. Should have let him do few more laps, the tyres were OK.

    The so-called Ferrari straight line speed advantage proved to be a myth this race. Same thing with their superior car, Mercedes was just as fast in race trim, it’s just bad/no.2 drivers like BOT who make it slow.

    1. @mg1982 Didn’t you see how easily Vettel and Raikkonen closed up to Bottas? It’s just impossible to pass on this track unless you are well over 2 seconds a lap quicker. Yeah, it wasn’t that much. Still, half a second a lap is a lot quicker, but not enough to pass here.

      1. Have to partly agree with you.

        1. Mercedes are saying the drivers are free to race each other for the race win but we’ve seen multiple times this season this is not the case. They are not giving Bottas the best strategy to maximize his points.

        2. Yes, would hate to say this but karma for Bottas for playing and accepting such a role. In the last race, just two words “Copy James” when the chief strategist asked him to hold position. Not a driver hungry for a race win. Even a magnussen or grosjean would’ve ask for explanation. And totally agree with you that Bottas is still young, should’ve shown some ambitions or was that part of the contract that was renewed earlier. I believe so.

        3. Yes Ferrrari pitstop and backmarkers ruined Vettel’s race, although I doubt he can overtake Hamilton looking at how hard is it to overtake Bottas on so much older tyres.

        1. Schumi I really don’t get this talk about Bottas being used as a pawn to help Hamilton. It was Raikkonen who was sacrificed. As always!

          What was Mercedes to do? Bottas might lose his position, so they put him on the same strategy to stay ahead of Raikkonen. Which worked. Sort of.

          The fact that he ended up in the way of Vettel was their own fault.

          It’s Ferrari which constantly keeps using Raikkonen as a pawn. He never gets to fight for anything. In fact in Hockenheim he was told to let Vettel pass him on track! How on earth isn’t that a million times more worse than asking your drivers to knock it off fighting in wet condition when you just got a 1-2 in tricky conditions after a car just went off because he was trying to go too fast.

          Ferrari is the one with the clear #2 driver strategies and they abuse it every time they can. While Bottas is given every chance he can get. Just within reason.

          Just look at least years Hungary race how far Mercedes will go to give Bottas equal chance. Do you seriously think Ferrari would give their #2 driver such courtesy? Instead Ferrari kept Raikkonen behind Vettel as a doorstop to keep Hamilton behind.

          1. Yes I agree Kimi is the no.2 driver and it has been like that since the start. Plus I think one crucial factor is how many times over the past few seasons as no.2 to Vettel had Kimi got close to challenge for a race win? I probably can only remember Monaco last year?

            But things are different with Bottas. He is able to win races although not consistently but still with a chance of doing that. This is what irritates me when team order comes in. Even though he is in second place, but Mercedes is not giving him a chance of getting maximum points in the championship with such strategy calls and team orders. Although I don’t think he is as good a driver as Lewis, but anything can happen. 1 or 2 DNFs for Lewis could just turn the tide but he would not be able to capitalise on that if he is continuously being used to help Lewis. Just like Rosberg, the whole world knew he is not as fast as Lewis, but he got the luck to win the championship due to some bad luck for Lewis.

          2. Well Kimi gets put on a strategy that loses him 10 to 20 seconds and he generally gets in trouble further from that too. When he then does end up ahead he’s told to let Vettel past. Not much he can do really.

            Raikkonen isn’t as good in qualifying as Vettel is, but the #2 status really makes him look a lot worse that Raikkonen actually is in a race.

            What team orders did Bottas get? You mean last year in Hungary when he was told to let Hamilton past to have a go? And then Hamilton gave the position back when he couldn’t overtake. With great risk of being overtaken by Verstappen in the same time. Is that a sign of Bottas being given team orders detrimental to his success?

            Or are you seriously saying that Mercedes asking Bottas to stop taking risks and bring home the totally unexpected 1-2 in very tricky conditions at their home GP was above reproach? That it would have been in the teams (or even the drivers) best interest to have at it for no reason at all.

            Or did I miss a whole list of other situations where Bottas was wronged?

    2. I rarely defend Ferrari strategy but Vet seemed to come out a just second or so behind Bot. I doubt they were banking on a 5 second stop and Bot was either matching or outpacing him at the time (must have been on an undercut).

      1. @throw But if they had pitted two laps earlier (or later, bc. that soft seemed like it could go a bit further, and bottas was losing pace to vettel before, so maybe that gap could have closed later) they’d have had a buffer for problems in the pitstop.

  17. Neil (@neilosjames)
    29th July 2018, 16:14

    Interesting race, for this track. Shame it was more strategic than action-based, but nothing was truly settled until a few laps from home so I gave it a 7.

  18. If Ferrari had prioritised Raikkonen’s race what would the final outcome have been?

    1. Best possible outcome probably a second place for Kimi. Lewis was just too far ahead.

      1. How come?! He was behind VET from the start. Choosing the same strategy for both… would have meant to still finish behind VET. More than sure he wouldn’t have managed to pass the BOT even if it wasn’t for that place lost to VET at the start. The Ultras did not work significantly better than the Softs to make a difference, plus it’s hard to overtake here with the current cars.

    2. The same. He just lost 3rd at the start to VET and couldn’t do anything about it. Pitting 2 times obviously helped him a lot catching BOT and VET and have a lot of speed. He simply doesn’t have the outright speed/pace on a single or 20 laps to fight the rest of the guys. In a full race it’s even worse for him. It’s no coincidence even the RBR guys, with an inferior car, managed to win some races in the last 2 years.

    3. @gnosticbrian Well they clearly sacrificed Raikkonen to draw away one of the Mercedes car from Vettel. Which worked. If they had’t done that then probably everybody would have finished in the order they were at the time.

      In the end it was only Bottas who suffered from being sacrificed by Mercedes to cover Raikkonen.

      1. I have a feeling that the “Seb first” approach blinkered them to Kimi’s greater speed mid race. He should have been released to hound Vettel.

        1. I don’t think there is any “Seb first” approach in this race. The only slight hint of this is when Kimi closed in on both Bottas and Vettel, but both Vettel and Kimi cleared Bottas within the next 3-4 laps. Plus it wasn’t that Vettel was slow, he was just being held up

      2. Oh, please, stop it! They did not sacrifice RAI at all! He was 4th, on Ultras, behind VET on Softs, without any chance to overtake him… or BOT… or HAM! RAI did not prove anything in the opening laps of the race, so he was doomed for sure to finish 4th at max. By pitting him early and moving to plan B (or this was their strategy from the start, so plan A?!) – 2 pit-stops – they avoided losing time behind 2 slower drivers and also saved him from staying in dirty and hot air, which obviously would have affected negatively his tyres, brakes and engine too. Keeping him on-track with 1-stop would have meant to still keep him behind BOT and VET, but on much older and slower tyres for the final part of the race, probably risking being overtaken by RIC in the last laps of the race. So, Ferrari knew BOT was a roadblock and he wasn’t going to overtake him anyway, so they at least made sure he had good tyres for the entire race, the final part too, keep him in clear air, giving him the chance to have a go at BOT in the final laps, BOT being on much older tyres. This was the best strategy to come up for RAI, no doubt.

  19. 8/10. Good race. Great work by Hamilton, Vettel, Raikkonen, Ricciardo, Gasly and Magnussen.

    1. and Alonso…another miracle.

  20. They messed up kimi on 1st pit stop. That could have made a difference to the final outcome

  21. 5: @Lewis earned that on Saturday.
    Damn shame Max blew up, let’s hope the Indy race has some action at the front.

    1. It was Max’s turn – I think it’s still his turn at Spa.

  22. We didn’t have the fight we were waiting for HAM vs SEB, but good race in overall, shame BOT lost in the end.

  23. Thomas Bennett (@felipemassadobrasil)
    29th July 2018, 16:27

    6, although my very low expectations probably heightened the score.

  24. Gave it a 6…if it hadn’t been for the last few laps, it would have been lower.
    I predicted the Vettel/Bottas clash, a few laps before it took place….whatever the outcome of that, Vettel was not clear before he chopped Bottas, or he would have avoided him, but being as not too upset Ferrari this delicate weekend for them, there will probably be no action….
    If there had only been a proper safety car for Van dorne the race could have been spiced up for us all

    1. 1. At best a racing incident, Vettel was like 70-80% car length in front of Bottas by then. A penalty for Bottas would be harsh but no way it will be Vettel’s fault.

      Similar accident with Hamilton and Kimi weeks back. No fault of both drivers in my opinion although stewards penalised Kimi but perhaps the car in front could’ve given just a bit more space for the car behind to make the turn.

      2. Never a full safety car for Vandoorne as he parked up nicely outside what do you call it, the evacuation route?

    2. Vettel got so much car in front of Bottas that he took the wind off the Merc front wing … lockup & plough was inevitable if he braked late to defend. Bottas should have known better but it was a long hot afternoon.

      1. You’re version of the story is rubbish. VET had the interior completely covered, BOT did not have any room there. VET let him 3-cars space on the outside for example. It was just a desperate stupid maneouver, where he braked late, also proved by the fact he had to go off-track with 2 wheels in order to avoid a complete head on collision. And another proof it was completely BOT mistake it’s that when RIC tried to overtake him at the end of the straight, BOT covered the interior and partially the middle of the track, so RIC went to the outside. If RIC would have been “stupid” as BOT, would have tried the interior. It’s some sort of unwritten rule, when the inside is covered and not enough space, you just back off or try on the outside.

    3. Vettel is lucky that his stupid chop didn’t end up with him trundling around the track and having to pit with a flat tire … or worse. Vettel was easily going to clear Bottas at the next corner. Another unnecessary risk taken by the 4 time champion. Not really Bottas’ fault.

      1. I think Bottas should have backed out to be honest, but you’re right about Vettel. Just leave Bottas some more room, no need for that risk with Hamilton so far down the road. Be patient.

  25. i fell asleep…

  26. Verstappen’s rant bumped it up to a 6/10

    1. I couldn’t watch the race at the time, but followed Autosport’s text feed on my phone.

      When someone told me Max had ‘blown up’, I was a bit confused. Didn’t remember mention of that, just power failure.

      Then I saw the highlights. Ohhhhhh. ‘Blown up’

  27. I feel like Fer had a big say in denying us a Ham/Mer – Vet/Fer duel. Sai also played his part. He’s quite fast, but he suffers from a lack of race awareness.

  28. Why cannot I see the risults of these pools since 2017?

  29. Not really that dramatic.

  30. Not much to see today. One of the bests parts was Horner pretty much calling the turn one incident just before it happened.

  31. I turned over mid-race to watch the F4. That was fantastic, this race not so much until the end. It doesn’t matter, quali makes up for it. Rate the race 5, rate the weekend 7.

  32. I quite enjoyed.
    Didn’t expect anything special as Hungary is known for difficult to overtake. But Ricciardo showed how to do it even if you don’t have enough straight line speed. And then of course Vettel and Raikkonen Mr Brainfart (and I actually like that guy).

    Race for me is a 7 – great score for Hungary – plus an exciting quali bonus point (=8)

  33. While rain played into Hamilton’s hands in qualy I have to hand it to him as he had a clean race and focus on his own race. The more I see it VET is further away and unlikely to succeed this year in toppling him. With that said Ferrari may be better if pairing RIC with RAI .

  34. first race i’ve tried watching live this season, it was a rainy day and Germany was good, so i thought it’s worth a try. almost fell asleep twice, switched over halfway through to watch the F4 race at Snetterton (great race, of course).

    i just haven’t got the patience to waste my spare time on this sort of racing anymore, not when there’s so much better motorsport; back to just watching the highlights if i have time.

  35. Quite good I thought in the end bearing in mind it was a dry race on a circuit that does not allow much in the way of overtaking. I was on for a 6 but gave it a 7 after all the action in the last 3 or 4 laps.

    The fact that Vettel and Raikkonen could not get close enough to Bottas to execute anything but a desperate overtaking move demonstrates a lot of what is wrong with the current F1 cars. I think the judgement of a racing incident was correct but I actually thought Vettel was the more fortunate of the two drivers to get away without any penalty. He did chop Bottas a bit.

    I watched the coverage on C4 and I thought it very interesting that I did not hear DRS mentioned at all until lap 64. Maybe I just didn’t notice it earlier.

  36. Gave it 6, there was practically no action at all except on the last laps, for that I give it 6, otherwise would’ve been 5 most likely.

    I also gave 6 to australia and monaco this year, which I considered similar races, little action, hard to overtake.

    This looks like it will probably get a 6,4 score or so, I see a lot of 7 and a handful of 5 as well.

    1. Ah, yes, ricciardo obviously since he started so far back made most of the overtakes in the race, guess that’s where the 7s come from.

  37. I think Vettel’s main issue was traffic. Because he was on the harder tyres for the first stint, he had to go long and lap a large number of drivers twice whereas Hamilton and Bottas had to do it once only.

    Vettel at one time was 14 seconds ahead of Hamilton (and increasing the gap) and 25 seconds ahead of Bottas (also with an increasing gap). It looked like he was on track to come out right behind Hamilton after his stop (with a chance to attack on ultra softs) and well ahead of Bottas.

    However, he then hit traffic, and the gap to Hamilton reduced to 8 seconds or so instead of continuing to increase, and the one to Bottas reduced to 21 seconds. Vettel then pit right when he had clear air (maybe a mistake but maybe his tyres were finished there and then) and was then unlucky with a slow stop and even ended up behind Bottas.

  38. Extremely dull race and it was noticeable that the Sky team really didn’t have much to talk about throughout.
    Also is it just me, or have they dumbed down the commentary this year? I often hear them recapping the race a lot more and explaining basic things such as pit stops and tired a lot more than they used to.

    1. There’s a reason for that, and the seeming odd random moments of radio silence even if something is happening.

      The new American TV coverage is using UK Sky commentary, so the pauses are their lead in to a commercial break, the recaps are them returning to the action.

  39. 6/10, it always felt like something “could” happen, but it never quite did until the 2 Bottas incidents.

  40. I gave the race a 6, it wasn’t great but it was better than I believed it was going to be beforehand.

    As it was dry I fully expected a processional race, but there was more overtaking than I thought there would be, even if you didn’t count Riccirado who was starting out of position after going out in Q2 in the wet qualifying. There was also some uncertainty regarding tyre strategies which added something to the race.

    However overall I probably found the wet qualifying was more entertaining than the race.

    Before qualifying it looked like it would be damage limitation for Mercedes but the rain meant they secured a 1-2 on the grid which in turn provided the platform for Hamilton to take a comfortable victory.

    Both Mercedes made good starts and maintained first and second so they had track position and control of the race, and at somewhere like Hungaroring that is massively important, if it had been at a circuit where overtaking is easier Ferrari should have been able to use their pace advantage to get past both the Mercedes.

    A consequence of the wet qualifying was that everyone had free tyre choice for the start of the race and so Vettel was on a different tyre strategy after starting on the softs while the while the others at the front choose the ultra-softs. This ensured that it wasn’t clear how each drivers different strategies would play out until the closing stages, so the race result didn’t feel as much as a foregone conclusion as it normally would.

    Ferrari brought Raikkonen in early which caused Mercedes to call Bottas in to cover him, while Raikkonen ultimately went for a two stop strategy Mercedes decided to keep Bottas on a one stop strategy which although it meant he retained track position it also meant his tyres would not be in a good state at the end of the race.

    A combination of Ferrari not pitting Vettel earlier when he had a bigger gap to Bottas and a delay at the actual pit stop meant that Vettel re-joined behind Bottas and although he was quicker it was not enough to get past immediately.

    Because Vettel could not chase after Hamilton straight away it allowed Hamilton to build a big gap so even when Vettel did get past Bottas he could not threaten Hamilton.

    Regarding the two collisions late on involving Bottas, I thought it was more likely that Vettel would be punished by the stewards rather than Bottas.

    When Vettel hit Bottas at the start of the French GP and also when Raikkonen hit Hamilton at the start of the British GP both Ferrari drivers received penalties, I think I said after those races that I wouldn’t have been surprised if those collisions had not been penalised as a few years ago I don’t think they would have been.

    I don’t know if it is still the case but I was under the impression that they used to be more lenient with incidents at the start of the race due to the chaotic nature of the opening lap, so my thinking was that if those incidents at the start of races were punished, then these definitely would be.

    It seemed to me that Vettel closed the door on Bottas too suddenly, Bottas was already on the kerb where did Vettel expect him to go, it was a needlessly risky move by Vettel as the overtake was done and he could have afforded to give Bottas more space.

    I thought that Vettel should count himself lucky, firstly that his car was not badly damaged in the incident as he could easily have incurred a puncture which would have dropped him down the order, and secondly that the stewards did not decide to penalise him.

    With the Bottas and Ricciardo coming together, I thought it was definitely Bottas’s fault, but considering his tyres were shot and his car was damaged it was not surprising that he locked up and ran wide, and if Red Bull had told Ricciardo this perhaps he should have been a bit more cautious when going round the outside, thankfully although his car was damaged it wasn’t bad enough to stop him eventually claiming fourth.

    Although Bottas was punished the time penalty he received didn’t change the result, if Vettel had been given any time penalty it would have cost him a place, I wonder if the stewards took those facts into consideration when making their decisions?

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