Hungarian Grand Prix

Max Verstappen dominantly won once again in 2023 with a 33 second gap to second placed Lando Norris in his McLaren. The winning margin was the largest since Lewis Hamilton's 100th grand prix win at the rain soaked 2021 Russian Grand Prix. Sergio Perez made a statement drive as he fought his way from P9 to P3, it was the first time in five races that the Mexican driver had managed to get into Q3.

The race was won at the start at turn 1 with Lewis Hamilton starting on pole position for the first time since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix which was over a year and a half ago. Hamilton took pole by just 0.003s ahead of Verstappen and breaking the record for most poles at a circuit with now nine at the Hungaroring. The British driver managed to get away well in the first phase moving over to cover off an attack from Verstappen but suffered wheel spin in the second phase of the start meaning Verstappen was quickly gaining on him. Into turn 1 Verstappen pushed Hamilton wide and opened the door for both McLaren's to take advantage. Oscar Piastri who start in fourth managed to get through and up into second place and his teammate Lando Norris followed him down to turn 3 going around the outside of the Mercedes.

Further back Zhou Guanyu collided with Daniel Ricciardo who was making his F1 return for AlphaTauri. Zhou was starting from his best ever qualifying position in fifth but had a terrible getaway and into Turn 1 ran into the back of Ricciardo causing a domino effect as the Australian was sent into the Alpine's of Gasly and Ocon. Esteban Ocon ended up going over the top of his teammate Gasly which resulted in both drivers retiring for the second race in a row. The landing caused Ocon's seat to split in half as well as giving the Frenchman minor back injuries.

From there on out it was a fairly straight forward race as Verstappen pulled away from the two McLaren's before the first round of pit stops. Piastri and Perez scrapped it out for a place on the podium with the Red Bull driver forcing the rookie wide at turn 2 and damaged his floor as a consequence. Due to the damage Hamilton managed to pass Piastri and to everyone's surprise managed to hunt down Perez and try to challenge him for the podium but it was too late. The seven time world champion caught Perez with two laps to go but could not do anything. The Mercedes looked really fast on medium with low fuel compared to how the car behaved at the beginning of the race. After the race the Brit commmented on how the balance of the car at the start was all over the place but once the fuel loads started to come down the car suddenly got quicker with Hamilton setting similar lap times to Verstappen at the front according to Toto Wolff.

F1 heads to Spa-Francorchamps next weekend for the Belgian Grand Prix where Verstappen and Red Bull will look to break McLaren's record of 12 consecutive victories in a season by a constructor, a record that has stood since the 1988 season with the MP4/4.