It was an impressive rise through the field for George after a difficult Saturday.
Gaining 12 places during an F1 race isn’t a common occurrence. Add to that no safety cars, major disruptions, and a venue that is notoriously difficult to overtake at, and it makes the achievement even sweeter.
George put in a brilliant charge through the field on Sunday in Budapest, bouncing back from the disappointment of Saturday to weave his way up the order with some strong overtakes and impressive stints.
It was 18th on the grid for Sunday’s race after a difficult qualifying. We opted to start the race on the Hard tyre, enabling him to go longer and offset himself from the rest of the field.
But how did George go from P18 to P6? Well, allow us to explain…
First up was the start and George managed to avoid the first corner accident, moving up to 14th place. He made up another position on the second lap before settling into the race in P13, behind Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo.
As he navigated his Hard tyre stint, others on the Soft and Medium compound peeled into the pits, elevating George up the order. He got as high as fifth place before his tyres started to drop off, pitting and emerging in P14, one place below than when the pit stop cycle began.
However, he was on the Medium tyre, while many of his rivals were tackling their second stint on the Hard. He took advantage of this, moving up to P13 on lap 30 – two laps after his pit stop – and then disposed of both Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas and Yuki Tsunoda’s Alpha Tauri on consecutive laps.
By lap 35, he was rolling out purple sectors and fastest laps, the quickest driver out on track, moving into P9 ahead of Bottas. He continued to move up the order through both overtakes and pit stops for others, before eventually diving into the pits on lap 46 from sixth place.
It was another set of the Medium tyres for George and the car’s pace continued to ramp up. Running in eighth behind the two Ferraris, he was able to dispose of Carlos Sainz with a strong move into the first corner and then had his sights set on Charles Leclerc – who also had a five-second time penalty.
As George moved ahead of Sainz, the gap to the lead Ferrari was around six seconds, but he cut that down lap after lap and was just a handful of tenths behind by the chequered flag.
Nevertheless, with the penalty for Leclerc, George was elevated to sixth, completing his 12-place charge up the field and solid points added to our tally.
But were we expecting a P6 finish for George in the race? No. Our pre-race calculations suggested a a likely P11 and if everything fell our way, potentially seventh.
“Yeah, happy with that.” Great work, George!
Want to hear more about the Hungarian Grand Prix? Check out the story of a tough Friday to a pole on Sunday here.