2022 Hungarian GP: Post Race Analysis

Traditionally, Hungary has not been a very exciting race in dry conditions. This new generation of F1 cars provided plenty of passing and several different strategy calls which made the race very enjoyable from a racing standpoint.

Red Bull Racing with a huge recovery drive. Max Verstappen showing why he is a deserving champion. Dealing with a clutch issue but still extremely fast, had a little spin with a superb save that cost him very little time. Great drive. Let's not ignore their car was very very good today. Even with the short straights, the Red Bull was able to make passes on the straight that resembled the old Mercedes of 2014-2020. We saw this advantage with Perez as well.

Mercedes another double podium. We can wonder what magic was sprinkled over their car to make it so fast so quickly, but they look to be on their way to fighting for victories once again. Hamilton had a fantastic race, but I think it's unlikely he would have won the race if he didn't have the DRS issue in quali. It's more likely they would have reacted with the strategy the same way George's side did and had similar tire struggles at the end of the race. Instead they optimized the strategy the best with Hamilton, ran their race and got the result. George has to be a little bit bummed that after all that he was beaten by his teammate, but another podium is great for his season.

Ferrari.... oh Ferrari. Sure it would seem their pace wasn't as good as it appeared on Friday, but every team and driver recognized the temperature and conditions between Sunday were going to be massively different, making Friday's data very questionable. Instead, Ferrari banked on this as fact and when faced with the pressures of needing good pitstops and good strategy, they crap the bed once again. Sainz' first pitstop looked like they forgot to just drop the car once the tires were on, very costly to his race. Both driver's in the first stint appeared to be managing tires, and once they got the green light to push harder, they started to catch Russell quickly, but reacted to the Mercedes pitstop and didn't make any use of their more durable tire that the drivers preserved in the first stint. Leclerc showed the car had pace on the Medium tires, taking the fight to Russell and once ahead was able to pull away. But the team forced themselves into a bad stop with two short stints on the medium tires and then choosing to try a long stint on the hard tires, which everyone could see was a terrible tire. The weather was very cool, track temps low, there was rain drops with a risk of harder rain, and drivers complained about tire temps all weekend. Plus the Alpine's showed how bad the Hard tire was. How much more evidence or data did Ferrari need to know the Hard tire was going to be bad? Ferrari should be absolutely embarrassed how through away this season.

McLaren definitely have upgraded their car, and the slower high downforce circuit seemed to suit their car. Though they certainly looked better in quali than in the race. Lando did manage to get ahead of both Alpine's, but I expected him to be much farther ahead. Perhaps the cooler, slightly damp conditions took their car out of the performance window too. Ricciardo was having a pretty good race, but made a mistake and collided into Stroll. I didn't see a penalty for him, but he should have got one.

Alpine took a gamble with their tire strategy. The one stopper on a tire that was pretty poor probably was not the fastest strategy, but in the end they got pretty much the results they deserve. If they played team orders and let Alonso ahead, and had a two stop strategy like other teams, and all worked out well, the best they get is 7th and 8th. So not a terrible day for them.

Aston Martin in the points again with Vettel. His retirement announcement was sad news to many and a little contracting to his statements a week or two ago about wanting to continue to race in F1. Hopefully he is able to end his career on a high note. Stroll just outside the points, but it was nice to see the drivers allowed to battle each other for the last points position.

AlphaTauri's woeful season continues. Gasly has been good around Budapest in the past, and while he performed much better than his teammate, he was never close to the points. We saw Tsunoda's spin, but still confused how he finished 2 laps down.

Alfa Romeo's strong performance may be just a thing of the past now. The team says its down to weight, as they started the season hitting the minimum weight with other teams being heavy, and now these other teams have got their weight down, the Alfa is back to the bottom of the grid. Bottas was still having a really good race all things considered, so it was a shame to see a late DNF which also spoiled any hopes of an exciting race finish. Zhou had a mature drive and didn't make any real mistakes.

Haas can't be too pleased with the result of their performance upgrade. A pretty massive sidepod change which unsurprisingly resembles the Ferrari, but it was only fitted to Magnussen's car and yet Schumacher had similar pace. Of course Kevin had some wing damage in the race, but it still didn't look like he had much pace.

Williams maintain their place as the worst team. Albon had a scruffy race and finished a couple places below his talent level, while Latifi could be considered a success for not finishing last of the finishing drivers.

Driver of the Day: Max Verstappen. 10th to 1st on a track that is very hard to pass, with a car that had mechanical issues. Pretty impressive.