Raceday Recap: High-Stakes Battle at the Hungaroring
Nobody expected such a roller coaster of a race from this year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, but we got one anyway! The 40th anniversary of F1 racing in Budapest brought us the first Ferrari pole of the season, a massive amount of penalty investigations, and some cheeky humor on the podium - this race was quite exciting! Let’s explore how the race order got all shaken up and provided some lovely Sunday morning entertainment.
The weekend started off with a bang as Charles Leclerc took pole position after trailing behind the McLarens in all 3 practice sessions on Friday and Saturday. Ferrari has had such a rough season so far, and that fact combined with the team’s previous season’s weaknesses in Hungary led everyone to be shocked when the Ferrari driver beat out the two McLarens to start the race from first place - even Leclerc himself was astonished! Oscar Piastri claimed the 2nd spot on Sunday’s grid (only .026 seconds slower than Leclerc in Q3) with his teammate Lando Norris starting right behind him on the second row. George Russell achieved a respectable P4 in quali, but the real stars of the show were Fernando Alonso starting 5th, Lance Stroll starting 6th, and Gabriel Bortoleto starting 7th. Max Verstappen fell behind and started the race from P8, with Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar from Racing Bulls in 9th and 10th behind him. However, qualifying was less successful for many: Alex Albon, despite being first out on track, was knocked out in Q1 after landing in P20; Yuki Tsunoda faced his 4th Q1 elimination in the past 8 races; and Lewis Hamilton described himself as “useless” after being eliminated in Q2 in P12, his worst qualifying of the year. Additionally, Hamilton has been out-qualified 12 times by Leclerc in both Sprint and race qualifying so far in 2025 - not a good look for the 7-time world champion hoping for a fresh start at Ferrari.
Sandwiched by papaya on both sides, pole sitter Charles Leclerc after accomplishing “the most unexpected pole position of my career.” Photo courtesy of F1.
As the lights went out in Hungary, Norris tried to undercut Piastri going into turn 1 but the maneuver unfortunately backfired as Norris fell back 2 places. 2 laps later, Norris took the inside line to get back around Alonso, pushing his position up to 4th place. By that time, Verstapppen had also gained 2 places as he passed Lawson and Stroll to advance to P7. Alonso got by Russell on lap 25, with Norris leading the race. On lap 29, Verstappen pushed Hamilton off of the edge of the track around high-speed turn 4, an incident that will be ruled on by the stewards later today. No notable wild action happened again until lap 50, when Ollie Bearman was called in to retire the car due to damage on the rear of his car. 1 lap later, Piastri overtook Leclerc for P2 after pressuring him and gaining time for a couple of laps, the overtake followed by Leclerc crashing out because his race was ruined. Between laps 61 and 62, Leclerc took his frustration out on George Russell, swerving towards the Mercedes in a move that earned him a 5 second penalty for erratic driving.
Even more excited for the race than the 310,000 fans in attendance must have been the FIA stewards, as this race brought many more penalties and investigations than usual. As mentioned before, Leclerc and Verstappen were both influenced by the stewards’ decisions. In addition to those two incidents, Nico Hulkenberg received a 5 second penalty for moving off of the start line early, and Pierre Gasly received a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision with Carlos Sainz around turn 2. Although this race was seemingly calmer than the past few Grands Prix due to the lack of rain, traffic was abundant towards the middle and end of the race, with drivers radioing in to ask for blue flags; that way, the backmarker cars would let the leaders through instead of holding them up and making the true racing cars lose their pace. These flags combined with Lando Norris’ incredibly executed one stop strategy contributed to an extravagant victory for the now 9-time winner in Hungary. Norris’ win also secures McLaren’s 200th race win this weekend, an unbelievable statistic.
Norris beaming and soaking up every second on the Hungarian podium this morning — he earned it! Photo courtesy of Sportsnet.
Piastri stood below Norris on the 2nd step of the podium, with Russell in 3rd place beside them. Leclerc, disappointed, still earned many points for the Scuderia in P4, with a crazy run of drivers following him: Alonso in P5, Bortoleto with a career-best P6, Lance Stroll in 7th and Liam Lawson in 8th (notably ahead of teammate Hadjar, Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda.) Verstappen came in P9 after a disheartening race, and Kimi Antonelli rounded out a pretty solid top ten. Hamilton sadly made no progress from his qualifying position and finished the race in P12, and every driver P10 and below was lapped. Overall, it was a fantastic day for Aston Martin, a mediocre day for Ferrari, and a terrible day for Williams, Alpine, Haas and Red Bull. That’s okay though, because the podium was all smiles as champagne sprayed and Norris cheekily moved all of the trophies into the corner of the stage in order to avoid repeating last year’s tragedy…
Hungary was such a fun race to lead us into the 3 week summer break - with the championship standings now only separated by 9 points (OP 284 and LN 275), it’s still anyone’s title! I can’t wait until race weekends are back, but until then, be on the lookout for more fun content. As always, thank you for reading!!!
Lights out and away we go,
Lucy xx
