Official 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

[Piginapoke]

TheDeuce said:

Jonnny said:

Piginapoke said:

MiniMan64 said:

Max to win this from 10th?

Not a fan but that’s impressive.

Max’s best drive? This is incredible

Really? It's been quite straight forward for him really, Ferrari are literally the worst strategists ever.

And he has 13 laps on dying tyres. This isn't done yet.

Best drive to date, if he wins this really is special

[Piginapoke]

Peak Croft. Put on inters?! FFS

[Piginapoke]

What. A. Drive.

[Piginapoke]

ch37 said:

LukeBrown66 said:

Managed about 5 laps before falling asleep, and just woke up after it ended, perfect.

Why on earth so many people watch this I have no idea.

Personally I think that was as good as a 'pure' F1 race as we've seen in a long time, in so much as no safety car or weather to spice it up, just a great, tense, strategic race that was difficult to call until late on.

As I said earlier, it was like a mid 2000s race but with cars following closely and overtaking.

Loved it.

100% agree, fantastic race

[Piginapoke]

London424 said:

vulture1 said:

Hungrymc said:

I think we can be a bit harsh on the strategists. Particularly when we have new cars and new wheels / tyres and changing temperatures / conditions over a weekend. The strategists have to pick a direction with only partial data.

RedBull nailed it today, but we didn’t really know that until quite late in the race. Same with Lewis, he seemed to come in and out of contention and after a strong middle stint, it was maybe a surprise how strong he was on the softs at the end?

I’m not sure that Ferrari calls were that bad today when they made them. They rolled the dice a bit with the hards which back fired (maybe they could have anticipated that with the colder / damper conditions). But they had another car on softs that also looked rubbish at the end….By the end of the race, they look like muppets but I don’t think this was a howler like some recent races? Maybe I’m being too charitable.

Everyman and their dog were screaming at the tv last week to pit Carlos with 15 or more laps to go.
Everyman and their dog could see the hards were not the way to go today,.

But they were stuffed as they had to go hard or soft at the last pit stop. To cover Max they could only choose hard. They could have waited until 20 laps to go like they did with Sainz but Max would have been long gone and they had no pace on that tyre either.

But WHY were Ferrari stuffed at the end? Because they wasted the longer range of their mediums earlier in the race by bringing in their drivers early- Leclerc after only 18 laps, barely half their life. Madness.

[Piginapoke]

TheDeuce said:

RichB said:

Cold said:

ntiz said:

TheLimla said:

nuttywobbler said:

Get in George!

Hamilton fanboys going to be crying into their beers - excellent!

George Russell - the real deal.

Would love to know your summary of the race!!

In a similar vein but less antagonistic.

What do we make of the Hamilton v Russel fight so far? Seems like Hamilton is getting to grips with the car a bit better and swinging things his way more. Starting to close the gap a bit, will he be able to catch up by the end of the season?

I suspect that, if necessary, Russel will be getting plenty of in-race phonecalls.

you obviously didn't watch the race today.

It's bizarre that people assume Merc would behave that way. It's against their team culture and every driver they have had has stated that they really are free to race - yet still there is a nonsensical assumption that, secretly, they would favour one driver.

In the later stages of a championship battle they absolutely would, and both drivers should support that. But why on earth would anyone think they'd ask George to give Lewis a leg up when George has more points? Neither driver would want that.

Bottas’ 11 month contracts didn’t promote equality though.

[Piginapoke]

vdn said:

CoolHands said:

Binotto getting hammered on twitter lol

Very good!

[Piginapoke]

Gad-Westy said:

Piginapoke said:

But WHY were Ferrari stuffed at the end? Because they wasted the longer range of their mediums earlier in the race by bringing in their drivers early- Leclerc after only 18 laps, barely half their life. Madness.

Exactly. They were on different strategies. Ham made that strategy work by stretching out that first stint. And then when CL ended up on hards, although it was clear that it was the wrong strategy, he could have stayed out and probably still retained 4th. The pace wasn’t that bad and he is a capable defender. That late stop for softs left him with a mountain to climb very much like Sainz in France. Feels like they try to fix their mistakes with more mistakes.

Yep, the last stop for softs was the cherry on the cake!

[Piginapoke]

Adrian W said:

paulguitar said:

If Bottas had been better, he'd have been on a multi-season contract. We've seen repeatedly that at Mercedess they let the drivers sort it out between themselves. However much some people like to attempt to minimise Hamilton's achievements, the suggestion that the team regularly favours him just doesn't stack up.


Now that Hamilton appears to be fully in his stride, and outperforming Russell, we can expect more allegations of favouritism from the usuals, no doubt.

I'm not convinced that LH is out performing GR, LH was on softs at the end, what was GR on? how old were they?

Edited by Adrian W on Monday 1st August 08:41

Agree. GR at least matching the GOAT it seems….

[Piginapoke]

eps said:

NRS said:

I was one of those quoted about hards being a bad choice. Looking back, I'm not 100% sure they had much other option. The issue was earlier where they pitted early on the mediums to counter Russell, whereas they should have run their own race. The other issue was once going to hards they they abandoned that to then go to soft too.

They seem to forget what is best for them and react to the other teams too much. Mercedes has done this, but to a lesser extent. RB often use the tactics of unusual pit stop timings if they are struggling (relatively) against another team. It means they have 2 benefits - if they are out of sync and a safety car happens they might be able to jump the team ahead. The second however is that often the other team reacts to counter RB and messes up their own tactics, giving RB a far better chance. This is one of the situations where Ferrari seem to make a lot of mistakes, as they react to the other team even if on a different strategy, ending up in the worst of both worlds.

Exactly. They pitted one of their cars waaaaay too early and then proceeded to do the same with the other car. It was like they were covering off something they just didn't need to cover off. Red Bull playing brilliant F1 Poker with a losing hand but bluffing Ferrari into folding. Twice!! At the very least you would have split the strategies.

Not sure Red Bull had a losing hand; the RB18 was very quick on Sunday, certainly equal to the Ferraris and ahead of the Merc. Strategy and pit stops were 100% on point though and Verstappen drove a beautiful race.

[Piginapoke]

DBSV8 said:

Maxdecel said:

Well it wasn't the tyres <-Finger. From the horses mouth. https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.binotto...
They surely didn't forget to factor in the lower ambient ?

that article really sums how Binotto is 0ut of his depth .....his comment we couldn't win even with the tyre issue ............really.....!! had le Clerc been on the mediums instead of the hards he would have been ahead and not had to make an unnecessary pit stop .............definitely a podium position

Any combination of medium/medium/soft and leclerc would have won.

[Piginapoke]

pablo said:

Or rather they thought Bottas would be quicker and give more of a st than he did, I thought he was a disgrace to be honest compared to Perez

Well he gave it a good go in Hungary last year!