Ferrari’s ability to self-sabotage knows no bounds, and the Hungarian Grand Prix is the latest in a long list of examples.
And it comes against the backdrop of a team and driver in such perfect harmony they can overcome multiple issues and still secure victory.
After Max Verstappen could only qualify tenth, Ferrari had a golden opportunity with Carlos Sainz lining up second and Charles Leclerc third on a track that is traditionally tough to overtake on.
But there were spanners in the works. One came in the form of George Russell after his stunning maiden pole position, and another was the fickle weather that saw race day temperatures some 15C lower than Friday and persistent drops of rain falling.
The impact on the confidence teams were committing to strategies – or lack of it – was clear as there was an even split. Half the grid started on softs – with McLaren, Red Bull, Aston Martin and AlphaTauri joined by pole-sitter Russell and Alex Albon – while the rest were on mediums.
Sainz challenges polesitter Russell at the start
DPPI
The early stages belonged to Mercedes, as Russell held off Sainz and then pulled away to the tune of nearly three seconds, while Lewis Hamilton went from seventh to fifth behind Lando Norris.
Verstappen had already climbed to eighth by the time a brief virtual safety car to clear debris caused by Albon’s contact with Sebastian Vettel ended, and he soon expertly cleared the Alpine pair of first Fernando Alonso and then Esteban Ocon to run sixth.
By now, Norris was starting to struggle more on his softs and Hamilton was bottled up behind the McLaren, allowing Verstappen to close in. A decisive move into Turn 1 saw Hamilton up into fourth. Verstappen followed him through but then couldn’t match the Mercedes as he dealt with another reliability concern that saw the championship leader have to deal with a sensor issue.
Even with Verstappen’s progress, Ferrari had started to look strong. Sainz closed in on Russell at the request of the team, forcing the leader into a first stop on lap 16 to swap soft tyres for mediums.
While Russell crucially held Alonso at bay at the exit, Ferrari still stopped Sainz a lap later to try and jump the Mercedes but a slow stop prevented him from doing so. That at least allowed the team to avoid an awkward radio message, with Leclerc’s first stop on lap 21 allowing him to rejoin ahead of his team-mate.
Leclerc had to fight Russell before eventually finding a way past
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Leclerc had managed the longest opening stint of the frontrunners but the pressure was starting to build on Ferrari as Russell maintained his lead and Verstappen had risen to fourth place, with all four just six seconds apart. So, after a few attempts, the Monégasque made a decisive move on lap 31 with a strong pass under braking down the outside into Turn 1 to take the lead.
Then came the turning point, and what I can keep referring to as the ‘Ferrari moment’. Because so often there is something that can be traced as the catalyst to a disappointing result.
Verstappen came in for a second stop on Lap 37, leaving him 33 to run to the end on medium tyres. It was a gamble, and got the response Red Bull wanted. While Russell matching the stop was understandable, Ferrari – despite having a five-lap tyre advantage over Verstappen – brought Leclerc in. And that wasn’t the worst part.
The turning point for Leclerc: medium tyres are switched for hards
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The hard compound had already been seen as being too slow on Friday, but in cooler conditions the expectation was for it to be even more so. The likes of Alpine and Alfa Romeo committing to a one-stop meant they had to use the hard, but also showed that it was slow to warm-up, and lacked overall pace.
Ferrari didn’t heed the warning, even from its own driver.
“I made it clear that the medium I wanted to keep it as long as possible, but we pitted very early for the hard, which we need to understand why,” Leclerc said.
“I think the second stint should have been longer. The first stint was the right moment to stop, and we did the right choice there. But on the second stint, I don’t know exactly why we did it shorter.
“I’m pretty sure that this was [Verstappen’s] call [to pit], you know, to put us under the pressure, but I don’t think we should have maybe reacted to that because then it was a snowball effect to us and we lost much more than what we should do.”
Hard-tyred Leclerc had little defence against Verstappen
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The snowball effect was quick, and big. Leclerc had no pace and Verstappen was through down the inside into Turn 1 within two laps. But before he had completed another lap, the Dutchman was swapping ends exiting the penultimate corner and had to do it all over again.
“I was struggling a bit with the shifts and the clutch,” Verstappen said. “And we had to change a few things around that to not basically burn the clutch. And that cost a bit of performance. And I think that caught me out, out of that corner. But luckily, I could do a 360˚ so I lost one spot.
“Then we just kept our heads down and got him back again, pulled a gap and basically managed that to the end, because it started to drizzle as well. And no more risk to take and just bring it home.”
Verstappen spin dropped him back behind Leclerc
DPPI
As serene as that sounds for Verstappen, things were going to get worse for Leclerc. Russell closed in and found a way past for second place, forcing Ferrari to cut its losses and stop again for softs to run to the end.
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“I think the pace was very good today, on the medium, on a tyre that was strong it was really good,” Leclerc said after limping home sixth. “But then on the hard obviously we lost all the pace. So we did one stop more than everybody losing 20 seconds plus the five or six laps on the hard where we were losing a second per lap. So this is a lot of race time.
“I think starting on a medium was the right choice, I think stopping for the hard was the turning point of the race.”
There was still excitement at the front even with Leclerc out of the frame, with Hamilton running long before coming in for softs one lap after Sainz – who had done the strategy Leclerc should have and stopped on lap 47 for the soft compound.
A double podium for strong-looking Mercedes
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It was at this stage the Mercedes pace on low fuel was seen once again, with Hamilton carving his way past Sainz and then getting Russell on the exit of Turn 1 a few laps later, but seeing any hopes of catching Verstappen as drizzle fell ended by a late VSC for Valtteri Bottas.
“I was hoping it was going to rain at the end so I could challenge Max, but we ran out of laps,” Hamilton said. “With a bit of a better qualifying, if the DRS was OK yesterday, we would have been in the running for the win. But either way, two seconds in a row I’m really, really happy.”
With Russell third ahead of Sainz, Perez and Leclerc, Mercedes outscored Ferrari once again to further close the gap in the constructors’ championship to just 30 points.
“Coming away with pole position was great,” Russell said. “I think we had a really strong first stint on the soft tyre which, given how the conditions panned out, probably wasn’t the best tyre for that stint.
“Obviously, you’re always disappointed if you start from pole, to finish anything lower than first position, you’ll be disappointed with. But when you look at everything objectively, I think that was probably a fair result.”
Alpine opted for a one-stop strategy with hard tyres
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Leclerc didn’t feel the same, but behind him there were few complaints as Norris was the only other driver on the lead lap, two-stopping to seventh. Then came the Alpine pair of Alonso and Ocon – who did just make the one-stop work using the hard compound – with the Frenchman holding off Vettel by just 0.1sec at the line.
It showed how the hard tyre was a struggle, but Alpine committed to the strategy early and had no data from the race to go on. Ferrari, by contrast, had all of the information to know it was a bad move, but made it anyway.
