The Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren) took advantage of the fight for the World Championship between his teammate, the British Lando Norris (McLaren), and the Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull) to win the Hungarian GP and seal his first win in F1although he had to wait two laps from the end, when Norris gave in and gave up first position to his teammate.
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Norris, who had taken the lead with twenty-five laps to go by entering the pits earlier than his teammate Piastri – the leader until then – spent twenty laps turning a deaf ear to the messages from his team, who demanded that he give up his position, something he ended up doing in a race in which he cut ten points off Verstappen, who finished fifth after a collision with the British Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes).
Hamilton completed a podium that Spaniard Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) was unable to reach, finishing sixth, while his compatriot Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) finished outside the points, eleventh, after being overtaken by Mexican ‘Checo’ Pérez (Red Bull), who with a great race pace made up nine places to finish seventh.
The superiority displayed by McLaren, who went so far as to stress to Norris that to win the World Championship he would need “the team and Piastri” while not giving in first positionshows a change of trend in this thirteenth Grand Prix of the season, in which Norris is already challenging Verstappen’s hegemony.
A bad start for Norris hampers him during the race
Red lights offPiastri took advantage of the fact that all eyes were on the battle between Norris and Verstappen and went into the inside of Turn One in first position, preventing both Norris and Verstappen, who had taken the outside of the corner, from making any progress in the opening metres.
He three-time champion The world’s No. 1 driver had to go off the track, while Norris lost two positions in just 300 metres despite starting from pole position. However, both Norris and McLaren claimed to the stewards that the Dutchman’s overtaking was illegal as he had gone off the track, and in fact, just a couple of laps later, Verstappen gave back the position.
Behind him, Sainz was unlucky at the start and lost two positions, giving up fifth place to Leclerc and fourth to Lewis Hamilton, who had plenty of pace on the medium tyres. In fact, after giving up second place to Norris, Verstappen had to focus more on maintaining his lead over Hamilton than on thinking about re-passing Norris, who remained in second position until he entered the pits.
The high degradation forced the pilots to start stopping very early.On lap eight the first drivers came in, especially those in the middle of the grid, having already worn out their soft tyres and starting to change to much newer, medium tyres.
Hamilton, fourth, did not take much longer to come in for a new tyre, launching an attack on Verstappen, who, however, waited on the track while Norris and Piastri also came in and held out for several laps waiting for a safety car that would allow him to enter the pits while maintaining that position.
But that did not happen and when he went out after changing tyres on lap 22, he found that Hamilton had taken third place and, in addition, he was on hard tyres that had the same pace as the McLarens.
Everything continued as before, with hardly any surprises, while ‘Checo’ Pérez and the British George Russell (Mercedes), who had started completely out of position, continued to gain positions, including Alonso, who was still in no man’s land, the same thing that happened to Carlos Sainz, who was sixth for most of the race without the possibility of overtaking and without suffering from behind either.
A Hamilton-Verstappen clash and the Australian’s first win
But there was still action ahead. The tide had turned and Hamilton’s hard tyres were now failing him while a much fresher Verstappen attacked relentlessly. He did so with such force that he over-braked at Turn 2 when he had already had everything under control.
All this was happening while Norris was sneaking up on Piastriwho was just over a second and two tenths behind with thirty laps to go. To make matters worse, a miscalculation by McLaren meant that Norris came into the pits a couple of laps before Piastri and Norris began to lead.
The team orders were clear: Norris had to let Piastri through, even though the Briton could be missing those points at the end of the championship. But the gap only continued to widen over the last ten laps, during which Norris had a lead of up to six seconds.
Meanwhile, behind, Leclerc and Hamilton caused an undercut to Verstappen The Dutchman complained about it on the radio, as it was the second time it had happened in just seventy laps of the race and after his second tyre change he returned to the circuit in fifth place.
With that anger, he let his ferocity out for the last fifteen laps of the Hungaroring circuit and passed Leclerc first before focusing on Hamilton. However, his aggressiveness played a bad trick on him and, with seven laps to go in the race, he threw himself on top of Hamilton in turn one when he was too far away.
Verstappen ended up off the track and Leclerc returned to fourth positionwhile the Dutchman tried again. But it was too late.
The three-time world champion dropped ten points to Lando Norris, who ultimately listened to the team and gave up first place to Piastri, who achieved the first victory of his career and who, as McLaren insisted to the Briton, he will have to count on if he wants to be world champion in November.
EFE
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