Championship favourite Lewis Hamilton finished in third place after dropping to seventh due to a lengthy unplanned pitstop.
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In what was an incredible turn of events, two of arguably the unlikeliest drivers managed the earn the top two podium finishes in an outstanding Hungarian Grand Prix (GP) on Sunday. Alpine driver Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin veteran Sebastian Vettel managed to finish in the top two places respectively. Championship favorite Lewis Hamilton finished in third place after dropping to seventh due to a lengthy unplanned pitstop after the first safety flag in the first lap. He had started the race from the first position. Verstappen had started in third but a disastrous event in the very first lap disrupted his and several others’ plans. He ended up finishing in 10th.
There was rain ahead of the race and the track was not entirely dry. Mercedes driver Valterri Bottas slipped on a turn and crashed into a driver, which caused several others to crash out of the race since everyone was very close to one another at the time. A total of six drivers, including Bottas and Sergio Perez, had their races cut short. Verstappen was left with a damaged car and in 14th place.
After this incident, the first safety flag was produced and the race was halted. At the restart, Hamilton started from the first place but had to go into an unplanned pitstop quite early. This resulted in six drivers heading ahead off track. After a while, he was trailing in sixth place. In the first position was the 24-year-old Esteban Ocon.
The defending champion made a very strong comeback throughout the course of the race. He had to stop for one last pit stop to make some adjustments to his tyre with 20 laps to go. By this point, he had outpaced Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda. He was now in sixth, behind Ocon’s Alpine teammate, and former world champion Fernando Alonso.
The battle between Hamilton and Alonso is arguably the best moment of the F1 season so far. Alonso frustrated Hamilton for a very long period of time as he used all his experience to keep the Brit from getting anywhere near Ocon. An Alpine will always be slower than a Mercedes, thus Alonso had to use every move he knew. He blocked Hamilton from passing him four times. By the time Hamilton did manage to get past him and Sainz, there were only eight laps to go.
The issue for Hamilton here is that no matter how fast his car can go, he still had to stop for two pit stops. Over and above that, he had used up a large part of his tyres’ lives to just get past Alonso. Vettel and Ocon, who have had not much to do at all at the front of the pack, had their tyres in a far better condition. The two were too far ahead of Hamilton, and Vettel actually focussed more on Ocon rather than Hamilton at the final lap. Ocon managed to finish in first place while Vettel finished second. Ultimately, Alonso’s resolute defence ended being the difference between Lewis and the first spot.
The third-place finish for Lewis means that he moves ahead of Verstappen in the driver’s championship table, and Mercedes would extend their lead over Red Bull in the constructor’s championship. All in all, it was a good enough day for Mercedes.
