How Mercedes seized a race win that belonged to Ferrari’s, Valtteri Bottas’ malaise, Pierre Gasly's standout performance and more. Motorsport Week presents its conclusions from the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Rain Man
The intervention of rain facilitated Lewis Hamilton’s German Grand Prix triumph and a few days later in Hungary the wet stuff again had a seismic impact on the outcome of a race weekend. Hamilton struggled throughout practice in Hungary and was braced for a damage limitation job, with Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel surely poised to control proceedings. Then half an hour before qualifying the large rain drops intensified, and all previous plans went out of the window. The intensifying nature of the conditions played into the hands of Mercedes and in particular Lewis Hamilton, whose ability in soaking weather is second to none. Pole was Hamilton’s, the front-row to Bottas, with Vettel only fourth, behind Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.
It was still far from over, though, with Mercedes wary of Ferrari’s start ability, engine prowess, and long run pace, estimating the red cars to be four-tenths faster through the opening sector alone. Ferrari’s strategy was an obvious one for the race: run Vettel long on Softs in order to chase down Hamilton to the end on Ultras, and use Raikkonen to force Mercedes’ hand with Bottas. It had good intentions, but several flaws unseated the approach and left Hamilton with a relatively comfortable cruise to victory.
Vettel jumped Raikkonen at the start and the Finnish axis of the strategy was undertaken, although any hopes Raikkonen had of overhauling Bottas were dashed by a tardier stop in order to remove debris from a brake duct. That left Bottas able to manage his own race, while up front Hamilton was able to extend his Ultrasoft stint through to lap 25, at which point he had established an 8.6 second lead over Vettel.
The Vettel-Hamilton gap hovered around the 14-second buffer, but this is where Vettel’s race unravelled. Vettel had a sufficient buffer over Bottas in order to stop and emerge ahead, but began to lose time; Ferrari was wary of having to conduct an excessively long stint on Ultrasofts, while Bottas put in a couple of rapid laps to leave the situation marginal. Vettel encountered a heap of lapped traffic during the build-up to his pit stop and when he did duck into the pits a slow wheel change cost him 1.5 seconds. The gap to Bottas at the first timing split point? 1.6 seconds. Rather than have 30 laps in which to reduce Hamilton’s 10-second advantage he instead faced a roadblock in the form of Bottas.
Was it really that defining?
It depends on which side of the fence you sit, as the protagonists themselves explained.
“I think what we did was OK,” said Vettel on the strategy, reckoning teams underestimated the durability of the Ultrasofts. “But then, as it turned out, with the circumstances and so on, we obviously lost out and we came out behind. Surely, that didn’t help. I think without that it would have been a much more relaxed last part of the race, probably hunting down Lewis, but with the gap that he had, I think it would have been difficult to catch – and then it’s a completely different story, especially around here to overtake. So I think we could have done the catching bit but not really the overtake, so, in the end it doesn’t change much to the final result. Just that it was a bit more work than coming out ahead.”
Hamilton commented: “if he had come out ahead of him, he probably would have caught me maybe five laps to go. Would I have been able to keep him behind? I would have struggled.
“Fortunately I did enough work early on while I had the opportunity, while he was behind Valtteri.”
Vettel becoming marooned behind Bottas did not necessarily cost him victory, but it at least cost him the chance of hunting down Hamilton, in turn denying fans of a potentially mouth-watering finale to the Grand Prix.
Finns can only get better
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Bottas put up a sterling defensive job to ensure that Hamilton could comfortably build his lead, in turn frustrating Vettel, who estimated he could lap up to 1.5s faster. Bottas’ tyres eventually gave way, Vettel slipped through, and the Mercedes driver’s attempt at re-claiming the position was clumsy in the extreme. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the resultant loss of downforce from the front wing damage, allied to extremely worn Softs, left him prey to the recovering Daniel Ricciardo, and Bottas’ second collision was another ungainly clash, one for which he was sanctioned. As if that wasn’t bad enough (part two), Toto Wolff subsequently referred to Bottas as a “sensational wingman” for Hamilton – a comment that could be taken as playing a supportive role. Bottas was understandably upset in the heat of the moment but both driver and team boss quickly moved to play down the comment. Bottas has had a troublesome first half of 2018: far more consistent than 2017, but with much less fortune. Now 81 points behind Hamilton he is surely set for a supporting role when Formula 1 returns in Belgium.
Summer breeze
Aside from those enjoying testing at the Hungaroring this week, Formula 1 has headed off on its summer holidays following a frantic spell of five Grands Prix in six weekends. It has been a peculiar run, with victories shared between Hamilton (3), Vettel (1) and Max Verstappen (1), but at only one Grand Prix – France – has the winner truly been the favourite pre-weekend.
Mercedes dropped the ball on strategy and reliability in Austria, while Vettel’s grid demotion at the same event arguably cost him a realistic shot at the win. Hamilton’s first-lap spin, allied to Ferrari’s engine step, facilitated Vettel’s Silverstone triumph, though two weeks later his dominance on home turf ended in desperate fashion, allowing Hamilton to turn the tables in astonishing fashion. And then Budapest. Ferrari was the favourite. Red Bull surely second-best. But Hamilton departed as the victor for the sixth time at the Hungaroring. Hamilton heads into the summer break 24 points clear in a title fight that could easily being led by Vettel, though it would be remiss to think that the battle is over.
“This year we all know that Ferrari really do have the upper hand pace-wise,” said Hamilton. “I think it’s far too early and you’ve seen the ups and downs we’ve had from this year, you’ve been ahead by some points and behind some points. But we have learned a lot. I don’t believe there’s ever a moment that you’ve got your hands on the title or the trophy.”
“I didn't do myself a favour last week but I think it’s part of racing,” said Vettel. “Stuff happens. Compared to last year, we lost the championship I think because our car wasn’t quick enough to be a match in the final part of the season, despite what happened with the DNFs. So I hope that this year, and I think this year has shown so far that our car is more efficient, our car is stronger and still has a lot of potential to unleash – so I’m quite confident with what’s sitting in the pipeline that we can improve.”
The great Gasly
Pierre Gasly has always been strong at the Hungaroring – recall him blitzing the opposition in GP2 two years ago – and profited from the Honda-powered STR13’s suitability to the go-kart-style venue, and a bit of rain, to convert sixth on the grid to sixth at the chequered flag. It marked his second-best result of the season and it is the third time that he has scored heavily at the three circuits best-suited to the car.
“Of course we know it's impossible for us to do better,” he said. “I think I was the only guy in the B-class not lapped in the race, so it's a pretty nice feeling. Honestly I'm really happy because we knew that with Toro Rosso, two, three times in the year you have big opportunities like this where the car works better than expected, things come your way. As soon as I started to arrive behind the Williams… I think actually the first time that I saw blue flags for cars ahead of me, when I saw that, I was like 'fuck! It means I'm doing a good race!' Usually the blue flag is for me for the Ferrari or the Mercedes, so that was a pretty cool feeling!”
McLaren steals a march
There has been very little for McLaren to shout about in 2018 but the strategy in Hungary would have yielded a well-deserved double points finish but for a shoddy gearbox in Stoffel Vandoorne’s MCL33. McLaren started both on the Soft tyres and ran long, as the likes of Carlos Sainz Jr., Brendon Hartley and Romain Grosjean all pitted – and briefly got stuck behind the yet-to-stop Esteban Ocon. The pace differential of the Force India, allied to the tyre compound differences, enabled both Alonso and Vandoorne to vault up the order to eighth and ninth by the time they too made their sole stop. Sadly for Vandoorne his hopes of ending a three-month points drought was scuppered by the aforementioned component, but his performance was hugely encouraging as the chassis swap – in the wake of a mystery downforce deficit in Britain and Germany – appeared to revitalise his fortunes.
