Hungarian GP: Pirelli Grand Prix Review
By Courtesy of Pirelli
Pirelli Hungarian Grand Prix Review
After some fantastic wheel-to-wheel racing, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton passed Red Bull's Max Verstappen to win the Hungarian Grand Prix with four laps to go, following a second pit stop late in the race to gain an advantage from fresher P Zero Yellow medium tyres. Hamilton, who started third on the grid, caught up with Verstappen again – who claimed a first pole yesterday – after his second stop to reprise their duel and ensure a spectacular finish.
- Both Verstappen and Hamilton began the race on what appeared to be identical one-stop medium-hard strategies, with Hamilton making his first stop six laps later than Verstappen. Having failed to get past Verstappen, Mercedes then opted to pit Hamilton for a second stop back onto mediums, which proved to be the winning strategy.
- After being passed by Hamilton, Verstappen also made a final stop onto the soft tyre in the closing stages, claiming the extra championship point for fastest lap.
The race was run at a frenetic pace: the leading duo were able to make their first stops without losing position to the third and fourth placed cars. The fastest race lap was also more than three seconds faster than the equivalent time from last year.
- Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel finished third with another alternative strategy: a long first stint on the medium, followed by a shorter final stint on the soft.
- The top six on the grid all started on the medium tyre, with McLaren's Carlos Sainz the highest-placed driver to start on soft, from seventh on the grid. The Spaniard finished fifth in the race after stopping once, from the soft to the hard.
- A wide variety of tyre tactics were seen throughout the race, with five very different strategies in the top five.
HOW EACH TYRE PERFORMED
HARD C2: Used extensively during the race and was the key ingredient to a one-stopper for most drivers: Vettel was the only driver in the top six not to use it.
MEDIUM C3: Another key element of the Hungarian Grand Prix; McLaren and Renault's Daniel Ricciardo were the only people not making use of it today.
SOFT C4: Did some surprisingly long stints at the start of the race with McLaren and was a key ingredient of Vettel's strategy, who ended up taking a late podium.
MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING
"This was a really exciting grand prix with a big divergence of strategies, which kept us guessing all the way to the final laps! Mercedes took a bold call to pit Hamilton again but it proved to be the right decision: even though the race was very nearly a one-stopper for both Hamilton and Max Verstappen. After mixed conditions in free practice and qualifying today was dry and warm: this almost certainly contributed to the unpredictable race outcome, as nobody really had any reliable long run data on the tyres in these conditions. Despite these demanding circumstances, all three compounds stood up extremely well to the challenge, with all of them contributing strongly to the entertaining race action."
BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
HARD		     	MEDIUM		 	SOFT
Hamilton 1m19.331s   	Hamilton 1m18.528s	Verstappen 1m17.103s
Verstappen 1m19.560s 	Bottas 1m19.331s	Vettel 1m19.786s
Leclerc 1m20.493s    	Raikkonen 1m20.880s 	Stroll 1m20.603s
LONGEST STINT OF THE RACE
COMPOUND	DRIVER		LAPS
HARD C2		Giovinazzi	53
MEDIUM C3	Raikkonen	40
SOFT C4		Hulkenberg	33
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