Ferrari falter at the Hungarian GP
Many experts expected Ferrari to be the team to beat in Hungary this weekend, but the Scuderia flattered to deceive once again. Sir Lewis Hamilton had multiple penalties throughout the weekend, and a poor start hurt Charles Leclerc hugely through the Grand Prix on Sunday.
Video Transcript
It was also a pretty disappointing weekend in the end for Ferrari.
It could have and probably should have been a lot more, particularly for Sir Lewis Hamilton, who just could not get a break this weekend.
I already brought you the development that he got a penalty during qualifying, totally deserved, by the way.
That wasn't unlucky.
But no matter, Hamilton, of course, is an absolute whiz around this track.
He's won here eight times in his career.
He literally has a corner named after him, the second corner, for reference, around the Hungaroring.
And he got an all-right start overall.
He certainly got a better start than his teammate at Ferrari, Charles Leclerc.
Leclerc dropping from second place all the way down to P5.
It didn't seem like it was that bad of a start.
Wasn't a great getaway off the line, but he just seemed to fall back, especially through the corners, and he was in fifth place going round that first lap.
Great squabble from the Ferraris, by the way, during this period.
It looks as though Charles Leclerc was gonna try and get him back into the six-seven chicane, but it was not to be.
Hamilton was so close to getting past Verstappen into P3 off the line, but he wasn't able to get the overtake done on the Red Bull.
And if we know anything about Max Verstappen, especially when it comes to Lewis Hamilton, he knows exactly how to defend against him, and defend against him he did.
Ferrari then changed the strategy up.
They tried to do something different.
They brought Lewis in.
They brought him in early to try and get the undercut done, and it seemed like he managed to do that, and it seemed like he managed to do that as well.
Verstappen was behind after the first round of pit stops.
Job done, right?
Well, no.
Wrong, as it turns out.
Verstappen, to his credit, pulled off an absolutely unbelievable lunge.
It wasn't dangerous.
It was just absolutely perfectly timed, like prime Daniel Ricciardo back in the day.
But Verstappen loves a last of the late breakers move as well, and he pulled off an incredible one on Hamilton to get back past him.
Back to square one again, still behind Verstappen.
In the second round of pit stops, Hamilton did manage to get past Verstappen and make it stick, but then everything changed when the safety car came out, or should I say the virtual safety car.
One of the other front-runners, I won't name who, I'll talk about him later in the video, retired due to a mechanical issue, and it brought out the VSC.
Now, a lot of different drivers decided to pit during this period, and Hamilton was one of them.
There was about 15 or so laps remaining in the race at this point, and of course, if you go and pit under the VSC, your delta, your disadvantage when it comes to your time, is less than when it's green flag running.
So a lot of the different leaders decided to go in and pit for soft tires.
Hamilton was one of these.
Leclerc was one of these as well.
But Max Verstappen and also Kimi Antonelli were not two of those drivers who decided to pit.
They were on old softs in the case of Max Verstappen and old hard tires in the case of Kimi Antonelli.
But they thought they could get to the end of the race, and they were both correct.
Hamilton initially overtook or stayed out ahead, I should say, of Kimi Antonelli during the pit stop, but they both crossed the safety car detection line or on the pit straight at pretty much the exact same time.
You couldn't tell which one actually crossed first with the naked eye.
No doubt, though, Ferrari slowed it down and checked, and it probably showed that Hamilton was behind, therefore he should have stayed behind.
Hamilton, though, went out ahead.
He overtook Kimi Antonelli, and he looked as though he was gonna chase down Max Verstappen.
However, Ferrari came on the radio and said, "Lewis, you were behind.
You're gonna have to give that place back, or you're gonna get a big penalty."
So give that place back he did.
He slowed down, and he wasn't able to overtake Kimi Antonelli in the closing stages.
And just to compound the misery a little bit more for him, he got a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Now, some people have said that this is totally unfair, this is like Monaco all over again.
But according to my sources, according to everything I've seen, he did speed by .1 of a mile an hour, 1/10 of a mile an hour he sped in the pit lane.
That's gotta sting.
Five-second penalty.
Even if he overtook Antonelli, it wouldn't have counted.
And because Charles Leclerc was within five seconds of Sir Lewis, he overtook him as well in the final classification.
So fifth for Hamilton, fourth for Leclerc.
That is a big missed opportunity for Ferrari.
They look like the fastest team this weekend.
They will absolutely be ruined this.
They should have got more.
They should have got more, but they didn't.
They didn't capitalize on their pace.
And the drivers ahead of them did a better job, simple as that.
So they deservedly finished fourth and fifth in the end, but it could have been so much more.
It could have been so different.
But as the great Murray Walker once said, or said many times, I should say, "If is Formula 1 spelled backwards."
It's not, but you get the sentiment.
