F1 Paddock Notebook – Hungarian GP Sunday

- Lewis Hamilton extended his lead at the top of the Formula 1 drivers’ championship with his eighth victory of the season in Hungary on Sunday. Hamilton passed Red Bull’s Max Verstappen with four laps to go to complete a fightback from 20 seconds behind to score his seventh win at the Hungaroring.

- Hamilton had been switched to a two-stop strategy mid-race, with Verstappen committing to a one-stop that was ultimately scrapped when Hamilton passed for the lead. Verstappen came in for a set of Softs after being overtaken, allowing him to set the fastest lap of the race.

- Hamilton thanked Mercedes for its strategy gamble despite questioning the call during the race, saying he had the “steepest wall to climb”. Mercedes’ motorsport strategy director, James Vowles, joined Hamilton up on the podium as the team’s representative.

- The disappointment of seeing a possible eighth grand prix victory pass by so late in the race was softened by the circumstances for Max Verstappen, who conceded he was powerless to react to Hamilton’s strategy or pace once he had caught up. “Of course when you are in second you can gamble to do a two-stop. For me it was always about trying to cover him or stay ahead. With the two-stop, worst case scenario is you stay second and best case you overtake me, and that’s what they did today.”

- Sebastian Vettel took third for Ferrari after a two-stop strategy allowed him to catch and pass teammate Charles Leclerc in the closing stages. The one-minute gap to the front of the field seemed daunting, but Vettel said it was representative of where Ferrari was in Hungary and that the team had been pushing “flat-out”.

- Hamilton, Verstappen and Vettel were all asked to rate their starts to the seasons out of 10 in the post-race press conference. Vettel gave himself 5/10, Hamilton said he was “like 8.8, 8.9”, and Verstappen refused to put a number on his impressive start.

- Leclerc and Vettel both knocked back a question asking if their late fight for third place was in fact a fight for the pecking order within Ferrari. “That’s a bit of a stupid question, seriously,” Vettel said. “Obviously we are sitting in third and fourth and had a battle on track, but nothing more than that.”

- Hamilton’s championship lead swelled after a day to forget for Valtteri Bottas. Touches with Hamilton and Leclerc on the opening lap left him with front wing damage that ultimately forced him to pit early, dropping him to last place. Bottas could only recover to P8, scoring four points. Bottas was aggrieved by the incident with Leclerc, saying: “I love hard racing, that’s for sure, but that was just completely unnecessary. It compromised my race. He was lucky not to get a puncture.”

- Race control noted both touches with Bottas’ car, but deemed in both cases it was not worth taking any action. 

- Carlos Sainz topped the midfield fight for McLaren as he scored his second straight fifth-place finish. A good start saw Sainz get the jump on teammate Lando Norris and Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly before he stretched out his Soft tyre stint far beyond McLaren’s expectations, ultimately pitting after 29 laps to cover off Gasly. Norris had been close to Sainz, only for a slow stop to drop him down to P9 in the final classification.

- Gasly finished the race sixth for Red Bull, over a lap down on his teammate as he lamented a poor start. The Frenchman had sat eighth through much of the opening stint before jumping Kimi Raikkonen and Lando Norris in the pits. Raikkonen ultimately took the flag in P7 for Alfa Romeo.

- Nico Hulkenberg was left frustrated by an issue with his engine that left him down on power from an early stage in the race, ultimately leaving him P12 at the end and unable to fight for points. Teammate Daniel Ricciardo could only recover to P14 after starting last, having toiled behind Kevin Magnussen through the close stages that left his tyres “shagged”.

- Renault had taken advantage of Ricciardo’s low grid position to fit his car with an all-new power unit, resulting in a grid penalty that left him at the rear of the field for the start. Ricciardo now has a complete additional set of components in his pool for the remainder of the season.

- Haas dropped out of the points once again as its see-saw season continued. Kevin Magnussen took P13, while Romain Grosjean was sidelined by a water pressure problem.

- George Russell felt Sunday’s race was “more of the reality” for Williams following his stand-out display in qualifying. The Briton finished P16, ahead of Lance Stroll, Antonio Giovinazzi and teammate Robert Kubica, and remains the only driver yet to score points this year.

- Lewis Hamilton landed a €1,000 fine for speeding in the pit lane during his reconnaissance laps before the race. Hamilton was 10 km/h over the limit of 80 km/h.