HungarianGrand Prix

Solid points for the Team in Budapest

• Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and George Russell sixth in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

• After an intriguing qualifying session, Lewis lined up on pole position starting on the Medium tyre with George, who had been eliminated in Q1, in P18 on the Hard tyre.

• Off the line, Lewis was pressured by Max Verstappen and lost positions to both the Red Bull and the McLarens of Piastri and Norris through the first few corners. George meanwhile gained several places with our drivers running P4 and P15 after the opening tour.

• Lewis boxed for the Hard tyre on lap 16 whilst George continued on with his first stint. That triggered several other stops and, with Lewis struggling with car balance in those early laps on the new compound, he lost time to those ahead.

• George came in on lap 28 for the Medium tyre and began moving up the field and into the points paying positions. Lewis meanwhile was busy defending net P4 from Perez who ultimately undercut him; Lewis continued on before stopping on lap 49 for the Medium tyre.

• The Medium tyre proved a useful compound and George took a second set for his final stint. He closed on the Ferraris ahead, ultimately taking P6 by passing Carlos Sainz and benefitting from Charles Leclerc’s five-second time penalty.

• Lewis meanwhile used the Medium compound, and a slightly fresher set, to pass Piastri for P4 and close to within 1.531s of Perez for the final podium spot.

• That result sees the Team extend the gap over third in the Constructors’ Championship to 39 points ahead of the final race before the summer break.

George Russell

P6 was beyond our expectations for today. It was definitely a good recovery. We thought we would be P11 in a typical race and P7 if we maximised everything. I’m happy with how it went. The car was really quick, and this place is one of my favourite circuits. As a Team, we usually go well here so I had a feeling we would be quick.

Of course it is disappointing as we didn’t deliver yesterday. I think we could have been right up there and if we had two cars up front, the dynamic changes completely. Nevertheless, we’ve extended the gap over P3 in the Constructors’ Championship so we will take it. There are a lot of positives to come out of this weekend and we have learned a lot. We will go again at Spa next week.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Starting from P1 and not even making the podium is always going to be disappointing. We never believed we had the pace to beat Verstappen, but we could have been second had more gone our way. The opening lap wasn’t great for Lewis, dropping to fourth, but as the race went on our pace seemed to get better. At one point it looked like we’d be a distant fourth, but he did a good job closing Perez and Norris down in the final stint. It was frustrating that we couldn’t get on the back of them sooner.

Our expectations with George were to just make it into the points. For him to come sixth is a very good result. We were nursing engine temperatures, which cost both cars a lot of race time, as the ambient temperature was slightly higher than expected. We’ve made small gains to Ferrari and Aston Martin in the Constructors’ Championship, which is some consolation. Overall though, we leave here thinking we could have done a much better job as a Team.