My top (and lowest) performances at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix

Winners

My personal top three highlights from this race, from best to worst.

1: Oscar Piastri

The main story this weekend is without a doubt Oscar Piastri’s maiden win.

Piastri started off this weekend with an incredibly strong qualifying, only two hundredths off from his more experienced teammate, Lando Norris. Piastri further capitalized on his quali results by getting the jump on Norris and passing him on the first lap of the Grand Prix. From there, Piastri built up a sizeable lead between him and his teammate and excellently managed his tires (a former trouble area for the Australian) to maintain his lead throughout the majority of the grand prix. During the last pit stop McLaren decided to give Norris first service to cover off the challenge from Lewis Hamilton, allowing Norris to take the lead. In the final few laps around the Hungaroring, it seemed like Norris was not going to follow team orders to re-instate the pre-pit stop positions, but ultimately did, leading to Piastri’s first (of probably many) grand prix wins.

While his victory might be overshadowed by the late-race inter-team drama, Piastri’s qualifying and composure were truly highlights of this race.

2: Mercedes

The best way to describe Mercedes’ performance this weekend is quietly competent.

Coming off of a historic win at Silverstone, Lewis Hamilton only qualified fifth, nearly a half second off of the top three. Meanwhile, George Russel failed to make it out of Q1. However, Hamilton quickly made up a place and spent the first stint of the race in fourth. Then Mercedes undercut Max Verstappen, and Hamilton spent the rest of the race in third, successfully fending off Verstappen’s attempts to overtake him. Hamilton ended the race on the podium for the 200th time in his career. On the other end of the grid, Russel put in a long stint on the hard tyres to climb up through the midfield, making up nine places to score points on a track where overtaking is infamously hard.

In a weekend that was filled with inter-team drama and head-scratching strategy calls, both of the Mercedes drivers made up places, owing to steadfast driving and strategy. While they weren’t the team that brought home the most points, Mercedes were certainly the most successful.

3: The Hard Tyre

On a track that’s known for tearing up tyres, it is perhaps predictable that the hard tyre proved to be a highlight of this past weekend’s Grand Prix

While the hard tyre was used up and down the grid, three drivers showed the strength of the C5 compound: George Russel, Sergio Perez, and Yuki Tsonuda.

As already mentioned, George Russel made up nine places, in large part due to a 33-lap stint on the hard tyre. Similarly, Sergio Perez also made up nine places, starting on the hard tyre. On a weekend where criticism was building for the Mexican driver, Perez put in a stellar recovery drive from a lackluster qualifying.

Finally, Yuki Tsonuda pulled off an incredible one-stop this past race. After managing the VCARB on medium tyres for 29 laps, Tsonuda pitted for the hard tyres and finished the remaining 41 laps of the race. Tsonuda ended the race in ninth, bringing his points total to 22 so far this season.

Losers

Moving from the highlights to the low lights. My top (or bottom) three losers from the Hungaroring

1: Team Orders

From McLaren to Aston Martin, team orders up and down the race track were made, and only sometimes listened to.

At the top of the grid, McLaren’s one-two and Piastri’s maiden win was overshadowed by inter-team drama caused by an odd pit-stop strategy. In the final 23 laps of the race, Norris seemed unwilling to follow team orders and give the position to Piastri. As the gap between Norris and Piastri widened, and the pleas from Norri’s race engineer got more desperate, it truly seemed likely that there would be a repeat of Multi 21. When Norris finally did give the position back to Piastri, the whole ordeal already stained what should have been a triumphant weekend for the team.

Meanwhile, a bit further down the grid, there was team order drama over at Aston Martin. On lap 66, Aston Martin asked Fernando Alonso to let Lance Stroll through to attempt to pass Tsunoda. Alonso was told that if Stroll failed to overtake Tsunoda, the positions would be swapped back. However, when on the final lap Stroll was told to slow down and allow Alonso to retake tenth, Stroll did not respond to the radio and did not give up the position.

2: Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen’s race started fine but got progressively worse as the race went on, at the same time his radio messages got progressively more heated.

The world champion leader put in a good qualifying to start third on the grid, but coming out of Q3, Verstappen was clearly frustrated with the state of the car and the lack of results from the new upgrades Redbull brought to the Hungarian Grand Prix. The first major incident of Verstappen’s race happened when Redbull was undercut by Lewis Hamilton. While Verstappen attempted to use the five-lap offset to pass Hamilton (and got close on a few occasions), he ultimately proved unable to do so. To make matters worse, during the second round of pit stops, Verstappen was again undercut, this time by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. If the on-track drama wasn’t enough, throughout the grand prix, Verstappen’s radio messages with his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase demonstrated Verstappen’s frustration with the car and strategy. This frustration culminated in a collision with Hamilton while Verstappen was trying to overtake the Brit. Thankfully neither driver was injured by the collision, but Verstappen did fall further down the order as Leclerc repassed him

Verstappen ended up finishing the race in fifth, his second-lowest finish of the season. To make matters worse, it seems like tensions within Redbull are rising as the car has lost its advantage over the other teams.

3: Alpine

In a race that was jam-packed with action, Alpine’s shortcomings seem mundane, but perhaps that just makes things even worse for the French team.

For a start, the Alpine’s qualified 19th and 20th–Esteban Ocon’s special helmut, celebrating his 2021 win at the Hungaroring only serves to further highlight the poor state that Alpine finds themselves in today. The weekend did not get much better on Sunday. Pierre Gasly had to start his race from the pitlane (instead of 20th) but that didn’t end up mattering much as for the second week in a row, Gasly had to retire the car early. Ocon’s race overall was relatively unexciting, making up one position and ending the race in 18th.

Previously it looked like Alpine was hitting a bit of a stride, with points in Spain and Austria, but the most recent performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix shows a sad return to form for the team.