General overview
After an unexpected pole position on Saturday, Sunday brought everything back to the values that have emerged on the track this season. Yet another one-two finish for McLaren, whose sumptuous strategy brought the team its 200th victory. Norris made a single pit stop and was able to get behind his teammate and Russell. Pole sitter Leclerc finished only fourth, suffering various problems during the last stint that knocked him out of contention not only for the win but also for the podium. According to the latest rumors, it seems that there were tire pressure problems in the last stint on hard tires, to compensate for excessive wear on the planck due to the very low ride height of the car. By fitting hard tires with a higher initial pressure, the car rose slightly, but most likely, the tires did not work in the right window.
It was a very tactical race with decisive strategies and pit stops. McLaren confirmed its first place with Mercedes and Ferrari close behind. It was an uneventful race for Red Bull and a decent one for Aston Martin, which scored a double points finish, which is very important for the midfield positions.
The violin plot, accompanying the ranking plot, offers a clear analysis of the race, with McLaren unbeatable for everyone else, having accumulated more than 20 seconds of advantage over third place. It was also a fairly good race for Russell, but what is telling is Leclerc’s violin plot, which anticipates what the fuel-corrected plot will show: the stint on yellow tires was quite good, in line with the McLarens, while the stint on hard tires, especially the last one, was a struggle, with a diagram very similar to that of Aston Martin or Bortoleto, who finished just behind the Monegasque driver.
Race strategy
As mentioned earlier, the strategies were decisive, and Norris’s single pit stop allowed him to make up for a terrible start that caused him to lose many positions. Piastri, on the other hand, had a similar strategy to Leclerc as at the end of the first stint, he tried to undercut the Monegasque, who stopped the following lap to repair the situation, while at the end of the second stint, it was the Ferrari driver who tried to defend himself by stopping one lap before the Australian driver. On paper, the two-stop strategy was the most likely on the eve of the race, even according to simulations, due to the thermal degradation that generally plays a major role on the Hungarian track. This time, thanks in part to lower ambient temperatures, quite a few opted for a one-stop strategy. Among others, we can mention Bortoleto, Stroll, Alonso, Lawson, and Antonelli, all of whom scored points.
Focus on drivers’ lap times
Analyzing in detail, between the race gapper and fuel corrected lap times plot, it is possible to identify in detail what emerged in previous analyses. The first two stints were very balanced with Piastri and Leclerc, both on the same race pace, Russell slightly further back, while Norris went for a single stop, differing from the other three. The last stint, however, upset everything. Looking at the race gapper and fuel corrected plot, we can see that Leclerc’s lap times were not in line with the others, even more than 1.5 seconds behind the McLaren duo. This allowed Russell to come back and finish on the podium, but he was unable to do anything against the papaya duo. The pace of the top two was impressive, with Norris managing his tires well to make it through on a single stop and Piastri lapping more than half a second faster than Russell on the same strategy. Compared to Norris, he recovered several seconds, even attacking towards the end of the race, but was unable to do anything about first place.
Conclusions
Now it’s time for a well-deserved summer break, with the next GP in Zandvoort, Netherlands, at the end of August. This race, if it wasn’t already clear, once again highlighted the enormous potential of the Woking cars, which achieved yet another one-two finish after their misstep in qualifying, not only failing to start from pole position but also differentiating their strategies.