Four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen rolled back the year’s at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday by putting Lewis Hamilton under serious pressure right off the line.
The two former championship rivals were not set to start anywhere near one another on the grid ahead of Sunday’s race at the Hungaroring, with Hamilton being pipped to pole position by Lando Norris whilst Verstappen had to settle for a qualifying position of P6 after a late incident.
However, Hamilton was slapped with a three-place grid penalty for ‘unnecessarily impeding’ McLaren‘s Oscar Piastri, bumping Verstappen up a place.
The Dutchman then received even more of a boost when the FIA stewards also dropped Kimi Antonelli three places on the grid as a result of failing to slow sufficiently under yellow flags, which were ironically triggered by a crash for Verstappen in the final moments of qualifying.
With both of these penalties applied, Verstappen lined up fourth and Hamilton started fifth, meaning fans were treated to box office racing action right from the off in Hungary.
Red Bull’s star driver got away well at the very start of Sunday’s race and headed into Turn 1 three-wide as he fought for third with both Ferraris.
As Charles Leclerc dropped back, Hamilton and Verstappen continued to battle for track position, and as any fan of either driver will know all too well by now, neither champion was keen to give in.
As a result, the pair made slight contact as their wheels banged together, and though no direct damage was caused on either car, Hamilton chose to pit after the Scuderia’s tyre gamble left him at a disadvantage having fought hard against Verstappen on a set of softs which were quickly wearing away.
The 41-year-old pitted on lap 14 and rejoined the track with fresh hard tyres fitted to his SF-26, coming out the pits in P9 behind Arvid Lindblad (though the seven-time champion quickly overtook the rookie to claim P8).
Red Bull then responded by calling Verstappen into the pits on lap 15 and though Hamilton and Ferrari appeared to have successfully completed the undercut when Verstappen came back out onto the track in P8 behind Hamilton (P7) their celebrations were cut short by a spectacular move from the 28-year-old.
On lap 16, Verstappen seemingly came from nowhere to squeeze past Hamilton with a super late braking move into Turn 1, undoing Ferraris undercut and impressing even his longtime race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase who said: “Well that was quite special.”
The move even baffled race winner and reigning champion Lando Norris in the cooldown room after the race, when the McLaren star asked Verstappen: “Did you mean to do that?” after the replay had been shown on the big screen.
Speaking after the race, Verstappen unpacked the highs and lows of his Hungarian GP experience with a bit more balance, saying: “It was still a very tough race. Like I still saw the same things as in qualifying, where the car is really, really oversteery at times and in different phases.
“So for most of the race, just trying to battle that. I think we made a lot of good moves. So in the start, you know, to move forward, that made my first stint a little bit easier.”
The champion then reacted to his impressive move on the seven-time champion, saying: “Then the move on Lewis, of course, put me again in a decent spot. And then I guess the the call at the end with the soft. It was a long stint, but luckily, yeah, it worked out for us.”
Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.
