Max Verstappen recovered from 10th on the grid to win the Hungarian Grand Prix despite a mid-race spin as Ferrari failed to finish on the podium.
Verstappen successfully undercut Carlos Sainz Jnr and George Russell on his final pit stop, before passing Charles Leclerc twice on-track to take the lead of the race. Lewis Hamilton passed Russell late in the race to take second, with Russell completing another double podium for Mercedes.Sainz finished fourth, while Leclerc fell to sixth place after pitting for soft tyres inside the final 20 laps.
After earlier rain had left the circuit wet, the track was dry as the field prepared for the formation lap. However, it began to spit lightly with rain over the grid in the minutes before the green lights, only inflating the tension prior to the start.
Russell opted to start on the soft tyres, while the Ferraris of Sainz and Leclerc chose the medium tyres for the first stint. When the lights went out, Russell kept ahead of Sainz but the Ferrari made a look for the lead around the outside of turn one. However, Russell held firm to retain the lead.
In the pack, Sebastian Vettel and Alex Albon made contact through turn two, causing damage to the Williams’ front wing and leaving debris on the circuit. The Virtual Safety Car was deployed to allow the debris to be cleared, while Albon was shown the black-and-orange mechanical flag, obliging him to pit for repairs and dropping him to the very back.
The green flag was shown shortly after, with Russell safely out of DRS range of the Ferraris behind. Further back, Kevin Magnussen was called into the pits having also received a black-and-orange flag for front wing endplate damage which was sustained through contact with Daniel Ricciardo at the start.
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Having started from 10th and 11th on the grid, the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Sergio Perez began to make progress through the field on their soft tyres, passing both Alpines of Estaban Ocon and Fernando Alonso to move into sixth and seventh.
On lap 12, Hamilton used DRS along the pit straight to take fourth place off Lando Norris into turn one, with Verstappen quickly following the Mercedes by the McLaren and into fifth. The next lap, Norris lost a third spot when he was passed by Perez on the approach to turn one.
With Norris losing pace, McLaren opted to pit him for medium tyres at the end of lap 14. Out front, Russell was beginning to struggle with rear tyre wear and slowly fell back into the clutches of the Ferraris. With Sainz within DRS range on lap 16, Mercedes called Russell into the pits for medium tyres. Russell rejoined in sixth, between the two Alpines.
Sainz pitted at the end of the next lap, but a slight delay in releasing him from the pit box enabled Russell to retain his advantage ahead. Verstappen also pitted and used his new tyres to undercut Hamilton when the Mercedes eventually pitted at the end of lap 19.
Leclerc had stayed out and taken the lead and when he eventually pitted for a second set of mediums at the end of lap 21, he rejoined behind Russell in second having successfully jumped team mate Sainz. Russell’s lead sat at around two seconds, but Leclerc gradually reduced the gap until getting within DRS range by lap 27.
A half-hearted look into turn one did not pay off for Leclerc, but Russell was visibly struggling to match the pace of the Ferrari. As they began lap 31, Leclerc had his best run on the Mercedes of the race, and dived around the outside of the leader entering turn one to move into the lead of the race.
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Russell fell back from Leclerc to within DRS range of Sainz behind. Verstappen in fourth was also catching the pair of them and got to within a second before Verstappen pitted for mediums at the end of lap 39. Leader Leclerc and Russell both pitted on the next lap, with Leclerc switching to hard tyres. However, Verstappen’s out-lap was so strong he beat Russell out of the pit lane to move into a next second place.
With softer tyres, Verstappen caught up to the back of Leclerc ahead and easily passed the Ferrari along the pit straight to jump into the net lead of the race for the first time. However, at the end of the lap, Verstappen lost control of his car under throttle on the exit of turn 13, spinning through 360 degrees and managing to continue, although having dropped behind Leclerc.
Verstappen regained the ground he lost to Leclerc and eventually repassed the Ferrari to re-take the net lead of the race out of the first corner. Sainz eventually pitted at the end of lap 48 for soft tyres, rejoining in fifth behind Russell and handing the lead to Hamilton who was the only leading driver yet to make a second stop.
Hamilton eventually pitted on lap 51, taking a set of soft tyres for the final 19 laps and emerging behind Sainz in fourth. That promoted Verstappen into the overall lead of the race for the first time, while Leclerc behind was coming under increased pressure from Russell on his medium tyres.
Russell passed Leclerc for second place on lap 54, with Ferrari opting to bring Leclerc in for a third pit stop at the end of the lap. He rejoined in sixth place on the soft tyres, over half a minute adrift of leader Verstappen.
Hamilton used his fresher soft tyres to catch up to the back of Sainz in third, eventually slipstreaming by the Ferrari along the pit straight to take the final podium place. Hamilton then caught up to the back of team mate Russell in second, passing his team mate into turn one to move into second.
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Light drizzle began to fall in the closing laps. With four laps remaining, Valtteri Bottas pulled off the track at turn 11 reporting a loss of power. That brought out a Virtual Safety Car to allow the Alfa Romeo to be cleared.
The rain began falling harder as the race resumed with just over a lap remaining, but Verstappen managed to tip-toe his way around the final tour and take the chequered flag to complete a remarkable recovery from tenth to win by over eight seconds from Hamilton in second, with Russell completing a double podium for Mercedes.
Sainz finished fourth, with Perez holding onto fifth place by four tenths from Leclerc in sixth. Lando Norris finished a minute behind the Ferrari in seventh, ahead of the two Alpines of Alonso and Ocon. Sebastian Vettel claimed the final point in tenth after a late race battle with team mate Lance Stroll.
2022 Hungarian Grand Prix reaction
- Check back shortly for more race reaction
knightameer (@knightameer)
31st July 2022, 16:00
After each race I wonder and ask myself: Surely now Ferrari has run out of ways to mess up their drivers’ races. But Ferrari proves me wrong each and every time. Unbelievable incompetence..
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 16:04
New and interesting ways to trip over your own feet.
Why Ferrari why?
They started on mediums, so they always knew they had a akward choice to make, but hards?
Gabriel (@naylamp)
31st July 2022, 16:16
they didn’t. they just should’ve extend the first stint and then go M-S-M or M-M-S. they just panicked and follow RUS, nullifying their tyre advantage.
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 16:23
Agreed.
Russell had to pit from Softs, Ferrari didn’ have to pitt as early from Medium. That said, Hamilton also pitted about 3 laps later, when he could have driven longer. Once again he was pitting because verstappen had pitted. Fortunately Lewis had the good sense to drive longer on his mediums before pitting for softs. Were it not for sainz and Russell hamilton might have made a charge for Verstappen too.
If I'm not wery much mistaken (@ifiamnotwerymuchmistaken)
31st July 2022, 16:21
At this point, it’s no longer the strategists’ fault, it’s Binotto’s for keeping them in their place.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Leclerc starts to underperform to trigger a clause in the contract.
Sham (@sham)
31st July 2022, 22:24
I don’t think leclerc would do anything like that, but he needs a better team around him for sure.
Steve (@scbriml)
1st August 2022, 0:21
@ifiamnotwerymuchmistaken Where would he go if he left Ferrari?
Noah
1st August 2022, 2:09
Literally any other team would make room if they had a chance to bring on Charles.
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
31st July 2022, 16:38
I think the most telling was when the top three were watching race clips and when Max passed Charles, Hamilton asked incredulously, “they were on hards” and Max turned with a smile and said yes. That said everything about Ferrari’s decision.
theRealMax (@millionus)
31st July 2022, 17:18
Ha ha. I missed this. I find it incredible that me at home without any timings or computer power can make a better strategy than Ferrari. Surely they have computer modelling and not just an abacus and lucky beads…!
Mayrton
31st July 2022, 18:58
I agree. Seems like they miss the guy/girl entitled to make the final call and more calmly oversees all things and is just fed by the people looking at all the data, rather that latter taking the final decision.
G
31st July 2022, 19:32
I reckon they play pin the tail on the donkey to choose their next tyre. They blindfold a mechanic, spin him round a few times and the first tyre he touches they put on the car. Just a theory obviously.
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
31st July 2022, 16:00
If Binotto and the whole strategic leadership of Ferrari don’t step down after this season, they’ll beat the Scheckter – Schumacher titleless era. Such a gross incompetence was really hard to watch and ruined the race for me. Leclerc should legitimately sign a contract at McLaren, he’s still young, they’d pull the team really well alongside Norris, two or three seasons and they’d be fighting for titles. There’s no hope for him at Ferrari.
Gusmaia
31st July 2022, 16:31
Stragedy or Disastrategy at Ferrari
And if Volks/Audi are real about coming to F1, they should tallk to LEC – he would sign anything presented to him – and get LEC driving something like the future Audi team before 2026.
And it is really a fork on the road for LEC: either he takes charge of the team, even creating his own inside Ferrari, or he settles to wear red, get the muiltomillion pay with Ferrai and never have a chance of a title for the next 3-4 years.
Unless Newey retires, RB/VER seem to be improving. Even if HAM retires, RUS seems able to lead Mercedes.
Tim (@tungdil12)
31st July 2022, 16:03
Great Race ! I felt like watching a fairytale. Like you have to see it to believe it. Just awesome
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 16:05
The only downer was that DRS fault on Hamilton’s qualifying yesterday…. if only.
petebaldwin (@)
31st July 2022, 16:09
If no-one has any technical issues in quali, the finishing positions would have likely been the same…
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 16:27
Given how well Hamilton finished, his faulty DRS was a significant factor on deciding the outcome of the race.
Starting 7th, waisting all that time to overtake those cars would not have been the case had he qualified in the top 3 positions. His car was certainly good enough to do that.
petebaldwin (@)
31st July 2022, 16:30
Definitely but of course, Max started 10th and his early pit stop cause Leclerc to stop early as well. Either way, Lewis and Max were a class above this weekend. With the Mercedes improving, I’d be amazed if Lewis doesn’t pick up a win eventually this year.
jff
31st July 2022, 16:48
I’d like to include Russell in that list.
PS there were some really good drives throughout the field (including Stroll) but not as consistent as that top three.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
31st July 2022, 17:10
Yeah, Russell is proving to be an amazing driver.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
31st July 2022, 17:06
@petebaldwin Without the DRS, I suspect Max would have crashed into Lewis and it would have spiced up the championship a bit.
Puzano (@puzano)
31st July 2022, 18:24
Are you trying to spice up the commentsection?
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
31st July 2022, 21:49
@puzano just pointing out the obvious :-)
Illusive (@illusive)
31st July 2022, 16:04
What a race, what a win, Max you are the best.
Kribana (@krichelle)
31st July 2022, 16:05
What a drive from Ver and Ham. The race result was deserved for everyone. Who knows what Hamilton could have done had he not had the DRS failure yesterday. Ferrari, we are not satisfied as Mercedes fans, to finish 3rd in the constructors. What a race to forget. They could have gone long like Hamilton and Sainz rather than pitting Leclerc. Now, they have given Red Bull an easy championship. Even more embarrassing than 2018.
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 16:07
Agreed Driver of the day must surely be one or other of those two drivers. The only thing missing was a last minute SC for both cars start on new tires against each other for 3 laps.
jff
31st July 2022, 16:52
Imagine if it were just one lap with Hamilton chasing on fresh soft tyres ;)
That guy
31st July 2022, 21:48
And imagine Verstappen not leaving the door wide open, but defend like Alonso on those old tyres.
I’d love to see that
Nick
31st July 2022, 18:59
Bad strategy again from Fer, but they also lacked pace today.
Masterclass from Max!
F1sauber (@f1sauber)
31st July 2022, 16:06
Indeed today Ferrari crowned all their flops with this Hard tyre for LEC throwing away again another win and points. Binotto left the pit before the race finished, did he want to beat the rush our to go on holiday? Great example from the big boss. Someone has to bring about changes in the top management, its a pit and heart break for fans to watch LEC and SAI. Max deserved his win today and Lewis did another p2 which seems to show great improvements in MERC house.
MichaelN
31st July 2022, 16:11
Exactly, seeing Binotto run off to somewhere that was supposedly more important than being on the pitwall in the middle of a Grand Prix was a great catch by the TV director.
Moi
31st July 2022, 16:42
Well he came back quickly, just needed a sanitary stop? When you gotta go you gotta go.
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 16:17
Even when the one Ferrari pitted to softs, it was done too early to maintain their pace to the end..
Meanwhile you saw the same decisions made better by Mercedes. Hamilton went: Medium, Medium, soft.
In my opinion Mercedes made two mistakes. Hamiltons first pit stop was too soon to exploite the advantage of starting on Mediums. Russell’s fruitless tussel with the Ferrari which may have looked good for the 3 or 4 laps he kept the Ferrari behind him, ultimately wore out his tires much sooner than if he’d choicen look after his tires. Russell must have known he was on a one stop.
Broccoliface
31st July 2022, 16:19
He came back after two minutes, what are you on about?
DaveW (@dmw)
31st July 2022, 16:38
Yes we got a cringey series of live updates on his potty break from the sky crew.
Steve (@scbriml)
1st August 2022, 0:26
@f1sauber While the horror strategy certainly didn’t help, for whatever reason, neither Ferrari looked very strong in the race. Bother Mercedes finishing ahead of both Ferraris on race pace. Maybe he was so fed up he couldn’t be bothered, but even on softs at the end, Leclerc was over 0.2s off Hamilton’s fastest lap.
Ploss (@f1-ploss)
31st July 2022, 16:08
And people wonder why Lewis shows no interest in joining Ferrari…
HJ
31st July 2022, 17:45
Well, I think he did a couple of seasons ago before he signed his current contract with Mercedes.
I guess he is relieved…
Mayrton
31st July 2022, 19:02
He should be. 7 sounds a lot better than 2 or 3
Ud
31st July 2022, 16:13
Anyone has a clip/explanation for Alonso overtaking Ocon?
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 16:18
A better clip would be Ricardo’s over take of both Alonso and Ocon. Sweet.
SHR Modding
31st July 2022, 19:18
That must have been painful for alpine. Ocon was defending so hard against alonso he forgot ricciardo was there
SHR Modding
31st July 2022, 19:17
He was faster the whole race, was bound to get through at some point.
Sviat
31st July 2022, 20:33
Team orders. They wanted to make a gift to Alonso for his birthday. And, probably, they were not happy with Ocon on the first lap.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
31st July 2022, 16:16
I don’t know what Binotto was looking for in the garage at the end of the race. Is this the first time we’ve saw this. First, they didn’t ask Sainz to move for Leclerc and lost him a lot of time in the first stint. Despite this, Leclerc managed to overtake Russell and build a healthy lead of 5s when put of the blue they panicked seeing Verstappen coming back and put Leclerc on the hard tyre.
Whoever did this, apparently doesn’t have any idea about racing let alone F1. Alonso and Ocon were all over the places sliding and struggling on the hard tyres as it was the wrong tyre for the race. The hard tyres this year were hard to get into the optimum working range in hotter conditions. Leclerc had a better pace and tyre management than Sainz in the entire race. He was doing good lap times, could have extended the second stint on the medium and then caught Verstappen on the softs in the final laps of the GP.
Jacques Villeneuve on Canal+ said ironically when Ferrari decided to pit Leclerc a second time an put him on the hards, “The Ferrari pitwall must definitely be watching another race”. There are two main issues here :
A bias from the team towards Sainz who proved again he is the useless driver that he has always been. Not a single move in the race, run into tyre troubles quickly and couldn’t catch George Russell on a slower car in 2 different stints. Served only to lose Leclerc a lot of time in the opening stint.
The second issue is pretty clear to everyone bar Binotto. The racing operations are dysfunctional. The racing operations and the entire strategy department must go through major reshuffle ASAP because this way they are inventing new ways to damage the entire team on the short and long terms as well.
Racefan998
31st July 2022, 16:18
And the thing is. You and I can see that before it unfolds. Anywhere we can apply for Ferrari strategists?
Kribana (@krichelle)
31st July 2022, 16:21
Nah. They are busy saving costs. No chance to get a job. I bet they will go asking crazy requirements like 10 years working at a strategy role in an F1 team.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
31st July 2022, 16:34
Racefan998,
Same question was asked today by the French commentator to Jacques Villeneuve at the end of the race because he predicted it with his ironic style. He said “I could easily do it without having to look at the computer, I need only to watch the race in the monitor”.
knightameer (@knightameer)
31st July 2022, 16:29
At this point its better for Ferrari to launch ‘Fans Create our Strategy’ campaign rather than use their useless strategy team. We as fans could see immediately what was the best strategy, these paid strategists couldn’t understand that?
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 23:32
No i think you’ll find their strategy is machine generated,
specifically an a.i running on Windows XP.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
1st August 2022, 0:27
Sounds like a great idea. I am totally convinced the fans couldn’t do a worse job. There must be thousands just shouting at their TVs.
DaveW (@dmw)
31st July 2022, 16:42
All this is true but if leclerc had qualified ahead of sainz he probably wins this race by 20 seconds. Or if he had demanded from
The team he be let by after the start. He has got to be a little more ruthless when things don’t go quite his way. If it was Sainz behind he would have been crying on the radio that he’s quicker and could pass Russell.
Qeki (@qeki)
31st July 2022, 18:45
@tifoso1989 I heard they didn’t have any new mediums left
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
31st July 2022, 19:09
@qeki
They did have 1 set of medium, 1 set of soft and 1 set of hard for the race.
Qeki (@qeki)
31st July 2022, 19:14
@tifoso1989 Of course they would have them and put hards on :facepalm:
Racefan998
31st July 2022, 16:16
How can whole world see that the strategy is not going to work out and those people at Ferrari can not see that?
Cap SF (@dudebv)
31st July 2022, 16:51
Simple: incompetence.
If a person is incompetent but keeps his job, he probably has friend higher up.
One can see this a lot in a government.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
31st July 2022, 21:36
Or relative higher up.
Edvaldo
31st July 2022, 16:22
And once again Ferrari gave the right strategy to the slower driver, who did not do anything the whole race, who have no pace and chews the tyres.
If their management takes themselves seriously, a major staff change should be provided for the remainder of the season. This was one of the most obvious samples of incompetence i ever saw in motor sports.
I truly feel bad for the guys who designed such a beauty of a car to see it being misused so badly by this horror show of a team
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 23:39
Can’t you see their reasoning. Ferrari have given up on Leclec as a possible title winner and instead have decided to support Sainz bid to remain in the top 4 of the championship. Ferrari knows the moment he slips down is the moment they loses that second place in the constructors to Mercedes.
Of course the fact that Leclerc is also loosing points to Mercedes is not in their calculations.
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
31st July 2022, 16:28
As bad as the Ferrari strategy was, it wasn’t as bad as leclerc crashing on his own losing a race win. If it’s not the team making mistakes it’s the drivers. Best thing Ferrari can do is move the team to the UK to they can recruit more red bull and Mercedes’ staff and learn how to manage a team properly.
Ruben
31st July 2022, 16:44
Schumacher has prove that you can with Ferrari in Italy. You just need strong people at the top who get trusted with taking bold decisions without the politics.
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
31st July 2022, 17:10
That’s true, it might be that the culture for success has completely changed since then though since it’s all about data now.
Jockey Ewing
31st July 2022, 23:36
Well, theoretically it is all about data. Or information extracted form that data. Or at least computing has a more important role nowadays, than it had before. We are in the days when an AI can recognize cancer on an xray or ct scan image quicker than a doctor, or at least can provide very good hints about it.
But then:
Why do/did we see multiple drivers not obeying to those nice computer generated strategies?
Imo since the last season I remember seeing quite skeptical approach to their teams’ pit strategies from multiple drivers of multiple teams. For example Hamilton disobeyed at least 2 times, or at least tried to do so, and doing so was debated by many. I mean, Mercedes is practically a top car manufacturer even on world scale, considering the quality, and the quanity as well. Based on the quanity Daimler could buy up many of the car manufacturers in an eyeblink. As a world scale top operation, they have access to so many intellectual properties that even most of their competitors will effectively never have. Considering how much success they have made together, it not looked good to me. Or considering that he tries to get involved in supporting education of engineering students. How those scientist-like students will perceive it? Why to invest into that computing power then? Maybe he is somewhat “untouchable” in the team, and when competition arose this created some management-wise uneasy situations.
But obviously there were many other exceptions, like:
– Giovinazzi often blocked Kimi during races, disobeyed to let him by even when running a weaker race or running different strategies. Despite of Kimi having a better race pace except maybe for their last half season in the same team.
– Ocon often played hard against Alonso, and similary disobeyed sometimes, despite not having the upper hand.
It affected them adversely even today’s Hungarian GP. Ricciardo’s double pass on them created a meme-like situation.
– Sainz had some problems of obeying vs Leclerc as well.
Another Mercedes example:
At the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, 2020, so the second race of the fouble header at Silverstone. Despite the foreknowledge, that Verstappen has a good advantage tyre allocation-wise, and a decent pace, Bottas and Hamilton dueled hard at the early stage of the race, and that cost them dearly later on. Imo this could have been managed more skillfully. But you know, that was fairly early in the season, and Bottas (3.0?) was really strong-willed at that stage.
I consider these symptoms of weaker-than-should-be management, and to some extent unprofessionalism from the drivers. At least they should accept letting the teamate by at non uniform strategies, when the other has a better chance at the particular race. Personally I would happily obey to that, just to create a happier working environment, to presumably to get the favor back later on in a similar stiuation. There are people in the world who are accepting much harder things in their everyday business, for a much lower salary, like professional soldiers, commando members, firefighters etc, they are accepting that practically anything can happen to them any time when they are doing their jobs.
Apparently Schumacher was much more happy with Ross Brawn’s strategies, and as a young spectator I have really enjoyed that they often, came up with new things strategy-wise. Sometimes they were something new, like pitting more times than usual, effectively giving birth to multiple stop strategies (or at least they did more stos than the others :) ). Or sometimes those were a bit messy, so messy that they induced rule changes, like serving their time penalty in the pits on their last lap.
Imo drivers should be more happy to accept these strategies, as apart from quickly changing conditions (like track dampness, and temperature) these strategies are (or should be) based on:
– a lot of data, even real time data, like everyone’s track position, how the tyres behaved for various opponents, the quanity and age of tyre compounds the opponents still have, weather forecasts
– game theory factors, like including the history of decisions of opponent teams
This is so much data, that it is most likely more than anyone can perceive real time (without accessing that data at real time, or while driving the cars).
But none of these can prevent from fitting those hard tyres on at an ambient temperature of 20 Celsius at most, quite late in the afternoon, after seeing that it works terribly for others, or being a bit less supportive (than they should be) to Leclerc, their most likely only title hope.
Looks like Ferrari instead of running a longer stint, quickly got rid of thir mediums at the first stint, after consciously or unconsciosly sent Russell in the pits. Maybe they were afraid of deciding it on the track instead of in the pits, via strategy. Interesting, as during this season they were most often quite much faster than Mercedes at qualis and at races as well, so some overtakes should not have been a problem with newer tyres later on. While at that stage RB was still quite a bit out of contention, and for example at Austria we have seen superior tyre management from Ferrari vs RB. Instead of this they fitted the mediums again, and annulated their advantage, and then hell got even more unleashed. Even if they would have done some slower laps in exchange the tyre advantage at later stages, this not looked bad for them anyway.
Jockey Ewing
1st August 2022, 0:06
Well, anyway, when I have read, that Ferrari will have a new CTO, Benedetto Vigna, who is a successful techie, I have expected a change of approach, a change of direction. Of course maybe it not happens too quickly, but definitely expected more strategy-wise.
Interestingly, I have not really heard or read of him since then. Although I watch the GPs in my native language. But doing so is quite good for me, as out pundits are plain good nowadays. They are well informed, proven racers, so it is very enjoyable. But iirc they have not really talked of Benedetto Vigna nowadays. Does he attends the GPs occasionally, or not really?
JOA20
31st July 2022, 16:29
I genuinely don’t understand why Ferrari put hards on Leclerc if these tyres weren’t working. Did they hope for a miracle or what? Sure, 30 laps to the end with the mediums that seemed to last 20-25 laps or so (and Ferrari had used only mediums until then) seems a no-brainer, but for it to fail like that, they HAD to see it coming a tiny little bit. Softs would’ve made way more sense in hindsight, Leclerc would’ve finished ahead of Perez even with 4 stops against 2…
Ferrari better forget about the championships, a team that keeps making these mistakes is unworthy of the title. I’d be very impressed if the gaps to Verstappen and Red Bull didn’t increase by the end of the year, at this rate Mercedes may finish 2nd in the championship.
Edvaldo
31st July 2022, 16:39
They should’ve done what Mercedes did with Hamilton.
Sainz, who’s much slower and harder on the tyres, could take it to just 4 laps less than Hamilton. Leclerc very clearly could take those tyres longer than that and was ahead already. He would return maybe a few seconds behind Max with new soft tyres, it would be an a very easy overtake.
This was a masterclass of incompetence.
Jockey Ewing
1st August 2022, 0:14
Well, Verstappen did 32 laps + a 360 piruette on the mediums at his last stint. And what if the mediums not works for a longer stint? Then it will most likely will not work for many, so they will not be the only one who will need to do an additional pit stop.
Tyre usage graphics:
https://press.pirelli.com/2022-hungarian-grand-prix—sunday/
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
31st July 2022, 16:35
Seriously think Ferrari needs to start random drug testing their strategists. It would be the only excuse for what they did today with the short yellow, short yellow, hard call.
André
31st July 2022, 16:39
What happened to the driver of the day vote?
petebaldwin (@)
31st July 2022, 16:44
It usually starts a few hours after the race.
Ajaxn
31st July 2022, 23:41
Verstappen slam dunked it.
Sam (@undercut677)
31st July 2022, 16:41
Replace Binotto now, anything else would be negligence. There is no way he can fix this.
Ruben
31st July 2022, 16:41
I don’t know why Leclerc wasn’t more adamant he didn’t want the hard tyre.
Ajaxn
1st August 2022, 0:30
They pitted Leclerc way too early. Simply so he could match the verstappen pit stop. At the time of Leclerc’s 2nd stop, he’d only done 18 laps [!!!] on the medium, compare that to Lewis, who managed 32 laps on his mediums before he went to softs.
Pitting Leclerc early, with 30 laps to go forced their hand. They knew the softs wouldn’t last 30 laps and so Ferrari did the next worst thing to avoid an embarasing 3rd pit stop. The hards should have taken them to the end. In the end they had to do that 3rd pit stop.
Once again everyone was so busy reacting to the Redbull pit stops that they ignored their own tyre stategy. Only Hamilton stuck to his strategy to benifited with his late burst of pace. He had the ‘experiance’ to know that would be the better call. The story of this race can be found in the tyre stints.
If I'm not wery much mistaken (@ifiamnotwerymuchmistaken)
31st July 2022, 16:45
I just watched Binotto say they had to put Leclerc on hard tires because the car wasn’t working as they expected. Is the strategist his nephew or something?
JOA20
31st July 2022, 16:52
How to fix a car that isn’t working? Put on a tyre that even the tyre maker (Pirelli) says doesn’t work on this track! Genius!
Win7Golf (@win7golf)
31st July 2022, 16:58
FERRARI PLANS 2022:
Plan A: Abandon The Race
Plan B: Break The Wing
Plan C: Crash
Plan D: Drive Into The Wall
Plan E: Engine On Fire
Plan F: Fly Into The Barriers
Plan G: Grip Gone
Plan H: Hit The Walls
Plan I: Into The Grass
Plan J: Jump The Sausage Kerb
Todfod (@todfod)
31st July 2022, 17:17
You forgot
Plan G – Do unnecessary pitstop before the scheduled pitstop
Plan H – Put on the worst tyre compound possible
jff
31st July 2022, 17:03
Besides the clear misses by Ferrari team management, what happened with Leclerc on the Softs?
He could not even reel in Perez on old Mediums.
Mayrton
31st July 2022, 19:08
That was odd. I was waiting for him to set the fastest lap, lap after lap. Nothing happened and the gap remained the same.
Ajaxn
1st August 2022, 0:15
I was thinking the same. I was expecting Sainz to go on a charge and real in Verstappen, after all he’d only stopped for softs 4 laps before hamilton did. I think the Ferrari reliability issue was either at the back of his mind, or there was a very real fear the car would stop on the track again. And so what we saw was him nursing the car to the end. Strangely non of the pundits picked up on that possibility to pose the question.
Andy (@andyfromsandy)
31st July 2022, 17:22
Without the DRS issue for Lewis and the engine problem for Verstappen we were possibly looking at the 3 podium places somewhere in the top 3 on the grid. The way Verstappen was able to pass Lewis I suspect that was always going to be the order of how they finished.
With Lewis not having his issue and Ver still having his and without having to mess around passing Norris Lewis was surely going to be a long way up the road.
Oh all the ifs and buts and what might of been.
Lewis did show Ferrari how the tyre stints should of been run starting on the medium. George and Ver showed them how the other strategy would play out.
Adam
31st July 2022, 20:25
eh verstappan didn’t overtake Hamilton, he jumped him in the Pitstops. in fact before verstappan pitted Hamilton was faster than him. He got passed him thanks to the undercut. it was George Russell who verstappan overtook on track.
Todfod (@todfod)
31st July 2022, 17:22
I feel the pressure is on John Elkann over the summer break. The way I see it, this season is already over. Now they have to make sure that they are in the best shape for next season.
He has 2 options –
1) Fire Binotto asap and get another team principal after the summer break. The new principal has half a season to prepare for next season.
2) Demote Binotto to engineering head at the end of the season and take this time to poach the right team principal for the start of next season.
Either ways.. Binotto should not be team principal next year. He’s been hands down the worst team principal that Ferrari has had over the past 3 decades.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
31st July 2022, 19:45
Worst team principal in 3 decades is quite a statement.
But certainly, right now Ferrari have two almost great drivers. Leclerc is probably top 3 right now.. And thry cannot win races where they have the fastest car. You can almost count on them to mess it up.. They are that reliable.
Meanwhile look at Red Bull,..
Todfod (@todfod)
1st August 2022, 5:20
@jureo
I can’t think of any Ferrari team principal that was poorer in terms of leadership ability, execution skills and not learning from mistakes.
Jordan
31st July 2022, 21:54
@todfod
They’re all comparable over the Alonso, Vettel and the current era. Something is wrong elsewhere within Ferrari surely.
It doesn’t help that recent staff are compared to one of the top duos in F1 history, Brawn and Todd.
Jordan
31st July 2022, 21:55
*Todt
Anthony
1st August 2022, 2:30
I’m not sure Binotto is the problem as much as Iñaki Rueda is. He’s the sporting and strategy director.
If I'm not wery much mistaken (@ifiamnotwerymuchmistaken)
31st July 2022, 17:27
On reflection, I think Verstappen didn’t spin at all. When he saw Ferrari put Leclerc on the hards he did a mid race victory donut.
lucifer (@lucifer)
31st July 2022, 17:54
lol you could be right
Ruben
31st July 2022, 18:02
LOL, excellent COTD if you ask me :)
David (@djarvis)
31st July 2022, 17:32
I think we’ve just seen evidence that Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are just a level ahead of everyone else at the moment. Max winning from 10th and Lewis scoring a podium from 7th on a track that’s known as “Monaco without the walls”.
Lando did a good in 7th as the best of the rest. Aston Martin are such an odd whoa always seem to finish around 10th after poor qually and not seeing them all race.
The less said about Ferrari the better. So painful being a Ferrari fan currently
Jordan
31st July 2022, 21:11
@djarvis
Given that Perez was touted as a title contender last month, Max is more impressive over the Mexican than Lewis is over Russell.
I’m not sure Lewis has improved over last season, except less pressure is put on him when Max wins. History shows Lewis will need a faster car and preferential strategy to have any impact on Max’s lead. I would say Max is on another level and Lewis could probably live with Leclerc in equal equipment. There’s no way if Ferrari get their act together Lewis is going to podium.
Fahlen
31st July 2022, 23:47
Pérez was never a title contender. He was overhyped for god knows what reason. Of course Verstappen is more impressive compared to Pérez than Hamilton to Russell. Russell is literally his replacent, Pérez is a lapdog by design. And history has shown nothing of the sort you are implying here.
Hamilton was leading races last year often enough only to lose them to red bulls superior strategy.
Ankita
1st August 2022, 0:49
Wow how disrespectful ! That says a lot about you…
Steve (@scbriml)
1st August 2022, 0:58
Russell is a much better driver than Perez, so I wouldn’t expect the gap to an aging Hamilton to be as big as between Verstappen and Perez. But the last few races have suggested that Hamilton is driving better now than earlier in the season (when Russell also benefited from a couple of ‘free’ SC pit stops).
Qeki (@qeki)
31st July 2022, 18:46
No.
BassClef (@bassclef)
31st July 2022, 18:59
Good thing they didn’t ask Leclerc what he would be doing this summer as his answer would probably have been looking for an exit clause in my contract.
Jordan
31st July 2022, 21:15
@bassclef
Where would he go? I doubt even silly season could find him a better seat. He has to go trophy hunting for fun and not worry about the championship. He’ll just get stressed. Look how more relaxed Lewis is without the pressure.
Saeid
1st August 2022, 5:53
Do you remember last season lewis Hamilton ? He with 7 th championship do all kind of mistakes . Why you think leclerc get stressed ? He did 2 mistake this season . Even max did 2 mistake ( yesterday race was a example ) . Im sure if leclerc want quit ferrari Mercedes is his number 1 client
Qeki (@qeki)
31st July 2022, 19:00
Well at least we don’t need FIA to mess up this season as Ferrari is doing it all by itself. They should get penalties as well as Masi because they messed this season up
Franck Martin
31st July 2022, 19:44
The way I see it, Ferrari should do exactly what they did a couple of decades ago when they in essence bought the Benetton staff to win. Open up the wallet, bring in Horner to run the team, Newey to design the cars and Max to drive them. And in complete autonomy, without any interference from management. That worked quite well for the best part of a decade.
superman
31st July 2022, 20:42
Leclerc needs to get out of that toxic brain dead team. Let dumb Sainz and a random take their crap. Charles is far too good.
Jordan
31st July 2022, 21:17
superman, he’s also too good for the options, unless a team could build their outfit around him and start a project to have a title winner in 2026.
Steve (@scbriml)
1st August 2022, 1:03
Leclerc is far too good? The French GP just called…
Where would Leclerc go?
Edvaldo
1st August 2022, 3:20
Oh yes, because a single mistake erases everything else he has done…🤦
Kids…
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
31st July 2022, 21:41
Wonder how much grip those hards would have had if it started raining hard out there and Leclerc had just passed the pit entrance?
Diego
31st July 2022, 21:52
Another horrible stategy decision for Ferrari. Another horrible race for Daniel Ricciardo…
Biker56 (@biker56)
31st July 2022, 21:55
RB clearly superior car wins by 10 sec from 10th, after spinning!!! What a car!!! I suppose there was probably someone sitting in it. Ferrari strategy sucks!!! Probably someone in those cars too.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
31st July 2022, 22:37
I don’t know what to say. Ferrari have designed and built a really good car. It could even be argued that all round there’s is the best car. Or at least it was at the start of season. But what are they doing with their planning and strategy?
OK I can accept Binotto’s argument that the car may not have been performing as well as it might owing to the much cooler conditions. However the choice of hard tyres clearly ruined Charles race and they didn’t do much better with Carlos. There is no way under any normal operating circumstances their cars, which started 2nd and 3rd should have finished 4th and 6th.
As others have said I think the drivers, together need to start asking some serious questions of the team. They should be demanding better. The strategy team or their leadership must be replaced, urgently, whatever the cost. The team mainly through their actions have thrown away the chance of either title through what appears to be pure incompetence.
Todfod (@todfod)
1st August 2022, 5:36
@phil-f1-21
I don’t know how you can buy in to mattias argument of they didn’t have the pace. Heck, mattia was interviewed mid race by crofty and he said he wasn’t worried about Max’s pace for the race as they had him covered, and they were just trying to maximise their result. Ferrari made two blunders – 1) Pitting Sainz and Leclerc too early in the first stint. The mediums would have had great pace till at least lap 30. They didn’t need to mirror Russell’s stop as they were on a different strategy
2) I have absolutely no idea why on earth they thought Hards was a great move. Every driver that put them on struggled. It’s like Ferrari were sleeping and didn’t pay attention to rivals.
Let not forget their sluggish pitstop for Sainz and lack of team orders when Leclerc was on Sainz’s gearbox for 2 laps were also blunders that went unnoticed.
RB10 (@rb10)
1st August 2022, 0:28
wondering what Michael think if he watch the race
kpcart
1st August 2022, 4:20
Well this season has fizzled out due to Ferrari errors and idiotic strategies. Heads Will roll in Ferrari.
MCG (@malrg)
1st August 2022, 6:26
In another article. ‘Hamilton jabs at Verstappen: “If you look at Max’s race – he started 10th, spun, and still won the race,” Hamilton said after the race. “That says pretty much everything about his car.”‘.
That is a comment from the guy that had been winning easy for year after year after year. No respect.
Lewis, your comments apply equally to yourself, It says everything about your car for many seasons in succession.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
1st August 2022, 7:59
As soon as both cars had the first set of Mediums removed, both of them seemed more sluggish than we would usually expect. They just seemed to lose time too easily. Unless of course the drivers realised already that their races were effectively ruined so didn’t have the tools or energy to fight anymore! Very disappointing.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
1st August 2022, 8:00
This was a reply to @todfod