What a race!! That has to be the only way to start this blog because the Hungarian Grand Prix had just about everything and ended with Esteban Ocon winning his first GP. Lets start from the beginning …
Coming into this weekend in Budepest all the talk was about Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen and the collision that took place at Silverstone. How were they going to act towards each other? What the other one had to say about the collision and who was at fault. And most importantly how is that collision going to affect the way Max and Lewis race against each other? Also we saw Hamilton take Pole Position for the 101st time in his career with a good chance to win his 100th Grand Prix (already holds the record for most wins with 99). Unfortunately we weren’t able to get any of those answers in Hungary after the rains decided to start 10 minutes before lights out, forcing the drivers to intermediate tires and they had no practice time at all in those conditons causing a disaster at the very first turn.
Valterri Bottas locked up and went directly into Lando Norris and Sergio Perez resulting in all 3 of them to retire from the race (Ending Norris’ McLaren record of 15 straight races finishing in the points). In that spin out we also saw Verstappen get hit and take some damage to his car nd moved him way down the pack but his car survived. And we also had Lance Stroll lock up in all the confusion and he hit poor Charles Leclerc knocking them both out of the race and spinning out Daniel Ricciardo but he was able to stay in. Red Flag ensued and at the end of it all we had 5 drivers retired: Bottas, Perez, Norris, Stroll & Leclerc.
Luckily for Hamilton he was ahead of the mayem at turn 1 and got out unscathed and brought his car back to pit lane still in 1st and untouched. This is where the race took a turn for Hamilton though. As the cars came back out for the restart, after the track was cleared of all debris from before, Hamiltons team decided to stay with the intermediates (tires) and as he cruised past pit lane to go to his position for the standing re-start the entire rest of the field went into pit lane and switched to Medium tires. This caused for a bizarre scene at the re-start where Lewis Hamilton was in his position as the only car on the grid. All the other drivers were in pit lane for the re-start, causing Lewis to pit immediately after his first lap and forcing him into last place just 4 laps in. And who found themselves sitting at first place after all of this? Esteban mother f’n Ocon thats who!
Esteban Ocon, the 24 year old Alpine driver who has never won a race in Formula 1, battled 4-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel and all of his attemps to get past Ocon for the remainder of the race. Ocon was incredible out there today as he held off Vettel but we got to see the “teammate” factor in this race that we don’t see very often. Ocon’s Alpine teammate, former World Champion Fernando Alonso, continued to show that he still has alot left in the tank (pun intended) at 40 years old as he is largely to thank for this team victory. Alonso showed all the skill and determination as he battled a resurging Lewis Hamilton, who has fought back from last to 6th at this time, and fought off attempt after attempt by Lewis to get past him and continue his way up the pack. But Alonso held off Lewis long enough, and after Hamilton finally did get past him he just didn’t have enough laps left to catch Ocon and Vettel and finished amazingly in third place.
You could see the exhaustion written all over Lewis’ face and body movements as he was struggling just to get on and off the podiums at the post race ceremonies and could barely lift his gigantic bottle of champaigne. But as obvious as Hamilton’s exhaustion was, Ocon’s pure joy and excitement was even more obvious. It was fantastic watching run around the track jumping and hugging anyone he saw and when he finally reached his team he took the time to thank and hug each and every member that got him to his 1st victory. What was even more special was teammate Fernando Alonso waiting the whole time for Ocon to finish with the team, cheering along as he waited, and then lifted his teammate in the air as the whole team cheered on a well fought team victory.
This race is what makes Formula 1 so awesome to watch. You never know what is going to happen. Rains just before the start of race threw this race into Mayhem and we had drivers and teams in the top-10 that otherwise would not be up there if not for something major happening. We had 2 former World Champion drivers in Vettel and Alonso show that sometimes its not just about the car and how good it is, an experienced driver in these situations can really pay off. Points leader Max Vertappen was coming into this race after a very scary collision in Silverstone, in which he saw his lead in the standings shrink after Hamilton took 1st place while he was in a hospital bed. Knowing he needed a good result this week, and finishing behind both Lewis and Bottas in qualifying, he was hoping for a very different result. He managed to battle back to 10th place and earn a point to his total but with Lewis finishing third we now have Lewis Hamilton in 1st place in the Drivers Championship and to add salt to the wound Mercedes also passed Red Bull in the Constructors championship to take 1st place. We now go on an extended Summer break for the drivers with alot of storylines to play out until we get to August 29th for the Formula 1 Rolex Belgian Grand Prix.