[Official] Hungarian Grand Prix 2019: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 12 of 21

[Adam43]

Nice.

Max moved too early. I think he's lost some of this early career "race craft".

[Richard C]

Oh well. Great job by Lewis of chasing him down and a mature drive by Max.

Richard

[Adam43]

Can VET do the same to LEC?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Adam43

Can VET do the same to LEC?

No. He can't pass.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

No. He can't pass.

It seems Vettel forgot that point.

[Akrapovic]

He forgets that a lot. He needs to stop forgetting it.

[Adam43]

Hopefully Netflix saw that.

Interesting with that win no one at Merc shouted "Get in there"! I think that shows it was special.

[Anyopenroad]

Brilliant strategy call by Merc. Very good race. There are different ways for a GP to be memorable - two great drivers duking it out is one way.

[Adam43]

Those marshals are still in the grandstand

[bjohnsonsmith]

Congrats to Lewis.

[Adam43]

Nice summary and words from the Max.

[GT6]

Good race but silly that the top cars were a lap ahead of everyone else.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by GT6

Good race but silly that the top cars were a lap ahead of everyone else.

It's going back to how it used to be
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Hungarian_Grand_Prix

The average number of finishers is 6.4 +/- 3.2 for the Hungarian GP (Median is 6). Minimum was 2 (1986 and 1995), maximum was 14 (2012 and 2015). A SC helps keep people on the same lap. The lap did get a little longer in 2003.
Interestingly there has been a period of more people on the lead lap through the recent Red Bull and Mercedes domination. That seems to agree with other teams being a lot closer lap time wise, but they is more consistency.

Over a 70 lap race the average you need to be on average 1.16s a lap quicker than someone to lap them. A bit less when you consider first lap spread.

[Akrapovic]

It used to be normal for Minardi to be 5 laps down. The quality is higher than it has ever been - for teams and drivers.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

He knows how Red Bull works. If he can't beat Max (which he can't), then he'll get dropped within a year or so to make way for the next driver. Gasly. Who will suffer a similar fate soon, to be replaced by someone else...and the cycle will continue. And one day, when Max loses his touch, he'll face the same fate.

If he signed a two year deal I don't think he would be sacked in these two years.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

I can understand his motivation
He could be number 2 in a team that looked to be on the way down or he could be number one at a factory team on its way up and build a team focused on him

The extra$$ would have helped too

However if he stays with renault next year and beyond and they dont improve drastically he has waved goodbye at ever being champ

I don't believe Renault will overtake RBR in near future.

[P38 in workshop]

Am I the only one to believe the Verstappen Red Bull had better traction out of corners than Hamilton's Mercedes?Hungary had never been my favourite race,but it has been the scene of some interesting tactical confrontations over the years.At least the rest of the season should see some racing rather than the Mercedes led processions that we started the season with.

[Adam43]

Difficult to judge. I suspect both are better than the Ferrari which seems to do better on quicker tracks?

A few laps from the end of the race it was clear the Mercedes had the better traction!

[djinvicta]

Great response from a very young head on Verstappen to losing the lead.. Ho.. we need points, second is great..... Young yet mature future World Champion..

[bathurst77]

Originally Posted by FIRE

I don't believe Renault will overtake RBR in near future.

Probably not now
But this time last year things werent so clear cut
RB seemed to have lost their mojo and were sliding

For some reason Danny couldnt understand most of the problems were Renault related

[Taxi645]

Again a nice race of 1st position. Good call from Mercedes and great driving by both. Only thing Red Bull could've done is switch to the medium and the 1st stop for a two stop right away and stop a 2nd time for softs at the end. But that's very much easy talk in hind sight. Also I don't know if he had another set of medium?

[Alan52]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

Probably not now
But this time last year things werent so clear cut
RB seemed to have lost their mojo and were sliding

For some reason Danny couldnt understand most of the problems were Renault related

Hang on.Red Bull had won Monaco and Austria.Later on they locked out front row at Mexico.The decision had nothing to do with Red Bull v Renault.Verstappen was dominating Ricciardo in the second half of last year.Dan needed to “do a Rosberg” and find it within himself to compete with and possibly beat a faster team mate.He didn’t have the stomach for this.If you watch the Netflix series in the episode about him leaving Red Bull Horner says he was “running away from a fight” which is about right.A career kamikaze move.

[steve nielsen]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

Probably not now
But this time last year things werent so clear cut
RB seemed to have lost their mojo and were sliding

For some reason Danny couldnt understand most of the problems were Renault related

no, Dan had lost his mojo, Red Bull scored 11 podiums and 2 wins with Max in the second part of last season

[TrapezeArtist]

That was a brilliant piece of strategy, worthy of a chess champion. Get Lewis in-and-out without dropping a place. Then quickly close the gap so Max couldn't pit without losing track position. It was a most unusual situation created by the large gap back to third (which in turn was created by the poor performances of Bottas, Gasly and the Ferraris). I can't imagine that it featured anywhere on plans A to Z so congratulations to Mercedes on spotting it, checking there was no hidden downside and executing it all within the tight time window they had.

Can anyone else see a drift towards some dodgy late moves under braking? K-Mag on Riciardo was pretty clear-cut, yet he got away with it. I thought Leclerc hitting Bottas' front wind looked pretty iffy too, though we only got the one look at it from one camera. Perhaps the stewards have been stung by all the criticism on a certain well-know F1 forum () and are afraid to jump in with penalties.

While everyone is getting excited about Verstappen and Leclerc, the other new-boys performed well, within the inevitable constraints of the cars they are given to drive.
Lando Norris out-qualified Carlos Sainz although he lost out a bit in the first lap scrabble and then got thumped by a problematic tyre stop.
Alex Albon lost out in the exciting wheel-to-wheel duel we saw on TV but finished five places in front of Kvyat.
George Russell produced an excellent qually lap in the Williams and went on the finish 16th, in front of Stroll, Giovinazzi and his team-mate.

[S griffin]

After Germany, we have another exciting race at the Hungaroring. And without the need of rain

Great battling between Max and Lewis, shame Max's tyres weren't able to hold on, but it was a good defence while it lasted. Hard but fair racing between both

Vettel seems to be rediscovering his mojo, managing to pass people with incident. Shame he hasn't driven like that from the start. Although what was Leclerc doing on the first lap? Feel sorry for Bottas, Leclerc just drove into him

McLaren back up there again, are we having a repeat of 2010-11 where the big four was Mercedes, RBR, Ferrari and McLaren?

I hope this good racing continues at Spa