Oscar Piastri wins his first Grand Prix, but not after some late race drama as team tactics make the win uncomfortable for everyone involved. Talking of uncomfortable, here is our 2024 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix Result Summary.
This 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix Result, Lap by Lap, Review & Summary gives you just enough to catch up with. With just a hint of cynicism, bias, opinion and colour. The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t have enough time.
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2024 Hungarian GP Preview
Our 2024 F1 Calendar & Results
Our 2023 Full Season Reviews
2024 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix Result Race Summary
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Here’s where we capture the laps where stuff happened. We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Setting the scene – It’s a McLaren one-two as the orange cars of Lando Norris followed by Oscar Piastri defeat the man with the orange fans – Max Verstappen who qualified third in wet then drying qualifying session. Behind them there’s mild surprise as the Aston Martins and RBs fill positions 7 to 10. The big surprises, and one becoming less so, is George Russell and Sergio Perez being knocked out in Q1. Russell looked to be at least in the conversation for pole position but he went out too early on the drying track and ended up 17th. Sergio Perez responded to the pressure of keeping his Red Bull seat by putting his car into the barriers and 16th place. His career at Red Bull and F1 in general must be hanging by a thread. One more bad race and he’s probably done.
On the race day Sunday it is hot and dry, and some drama with pole sitter Lando Norris who has his car being worked on frantically before the start, it’s good to go though. as are we…..
GRID (Starting Order) – NOR PIA VER SAI HAM LEC ALO STR RIC TSU
Lap 1 – Pole sitter Lando Norris gets away ok and quickly turns his attention onto his team mate Piastri to the right pushing him close to the wall, but the Aussie keeps his foot on the gas and keeps his McLaren right on the inside of turn one. Meanwhile Max Verstappen has snuck up on the outside of Norris, and it looks like three cars wide into turn one, it can’t happen without accident surely. It doesn’t, but Verstappen is pushed wide and Norris is compromised but the Red Bull ends up second and Lando Norris holds onto third. Meanwhile Piastri has disappeared up the road – is 1.5 seconds ahead at the end of the first lap. Winners and losers for Lap One are Albon and Magnussen as winners up four and five places respectively, while Sainz dropped back, and as ever Daniel Ricciardo lost places at the start.
ORDER – PIA VER NOR HAM LEC ALO SAI STR ALB MAG
Lap 2 – Piastri continues to lead like he was born to do it, meanwhile the radio comms between Norris and Verstappen equally claim that the turn one action was unfair. Stewards are investigating, Max going wide and gaining an advantage that is.
Lap 4 – Red Bull get on the radio to Max to advise him to let Lando Norris past, which he does going into turn three. Oscar Piastri is 2.5 seconds up the road. Could be an interesting battle between the besties again. They have form recently.
ORDER – PIA NOR VER HAM LEC SAI ALO STR ALB MAG
Lap 6 – Quick check on the under achievers from qualifying….George Russell has moved from 17th to 15th, and Sergio Perez has dropped from 16th to 17th. Might be one more position to be dropped, if you know what we mean……
Lap 7 – Fast starters Albon and Magnussen make their first pit stops already. They drop to the tail of the field. Alonso and Ricciardo do the same a lap later
Lap 10 – No problems for Oscar Piastri in front, he remains between 2.5 to 2.7 seconds in front of his team mate and looks comfortable. A few laps after typing this, the lead is over three seconds and growing. The Aussie is cruising. Wonder if the appallingly biased Sky F1 team will be able to recognise Piastri if he beats Norris.
Lap 14 – Lando Norris’ team radio has the message that his race “is with Verstappen”. Meanwhile the TV Coverage is fixed on the race between George Russell and Sergio Perez for 11th.
Lap 17 – First of the front runners pits – Lewis Hamilton from fourth place and he dumps the medium tyres for hards. And drops to seventh in the process, just ahead of his teammate.
Lap 18 – Lando Norris pits a lap later from second. He rejoins ahead of Lewis Hamilton but behind the Ferraris. Oscar Piastri pits on the next lap and rejoins in front of Norris with a three second cushion. Max Verstappen stays out in front for a while longer, a place he knows well but is increasingly less used to in 2024. Meanwhile Lewis Hamilton sets a fastest lap to underline who has the best tyres on.
Lap 21 – Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz pit. Verstappen rejoins behind Lewis Hamilton. It could be worse, Sainz rejoins behind Sergio Perez. Charles Leclerc is the only one left to pit of the front runners, but his team are happy with his race pace, so let’s see if that strategy plan is a winning one, or a Ferrari one. He pits on Lap 24 and ends up behind Verstappen again.
ORDER – PIA NOR HAM VER LEC TSU RUS SAI PER GAS
Lap 26 – Post pitstop excitement and Oscar Piastri is doing it well. The gap is up to 3.8 seconds over Lando Norris with breathing room gaps opening up throughout the top cars down to 7th v 8th. Which for now is Tsunoda v Russell.
Lap 29 – Sergio Perez stops for the first time, a decent effort to get to lap 29. He does do longer stints well on a Sunday. Meanwhile his touted replacements make pitstops too. Ricciardo (second stop) ends up last and Tsunoda (first stop) ends up 10th. The other potential Perez replacement Liam Lawson has yet to make a pitstop this season, as he doesn’t currently have a 2024 race seat.
Lap 32 – Max Verstappen is gaining steadily on Lewis Hamilton in third, so a clash between those two might keep us awake. Someone who is certainly not asleep is Oscar Piastri who is now 4.4 seconds in front of Norris, with Norris himself five seconds up on Lewis Hamilton.
Lap 35 – Max Verstappen is right on Lewis Hamilton’s tail going into turn one and the Mercedes locks up allowing Verstappen to get past but only temporarily, as the Red Bull runs wide the very next corner as Hamilton reclaims third. Further up the road Piastri’s lead has halved after a few bad laps. Hopefully nothing terminal, probably lapping cars. Norris might smell blood though and the gap remains around 1.3 and 1.5 seconds now.
ORDER – PIA NOR HAM VER LEC SAI ALO PER STR TSU
Lap 40 – The Hamilton-Verstappen battle continues to rage, as does Max Verstappen back to his team about the car. Hamilton bails on that and pits on Lap 41, and Ferrari bring in Leclerc too. Meanwhile Max stays out, and to no surprise isn’t very happy about it. Tells his team they have f****d his race. Ouch.
Lap 43 – Oscar Piastri’s lead to Lando Norris is around 1.6 to 1.7 seconds and the McLaren is over seven second in front of Max Verstappen. The second pit stops are due soon, so there awaits our last chance of some action.
Lap 46 – Lando Norris pits from second and rejoins in fourth. Is Piastri, as Max Verstappen puts it, having his race f****d? The team claim the earlier pitstop for Norris is to protect his lead from cars behind. If Piastri doesn’t pit soon then McLaren are talking sh!t.
Lap 48 – Piastri pits and is told “not to worry about Lando”. He may well worry about Lando as he takes the net lead of the race. That seems awfully unfair, but the team continue to claim that it is about covering opposition cars. And mention about team order. Lando is three seconds in front, and one does wonder if he will give the place back to Piastri. One wonders why McLaren would stuff their own driver who led so comfortably.
Lap 50 – Max Verstappen pits from the lead, leaving Norris ahead of Piastri with 20 laps to go. The Red Bull rejoins fifth. Norris continues to increase the gap to Piastri, and the team continue to promise Piastri of a swap in position.
ORDER – NOR PIA HAM LEC VER SAI RUS PER TSU ALO
Lap 54 – The gap between Norris and Piastri remain around 3.5 seconds. And a change doesn’t seem likely as Verstappen closes right on the tail of Leclerc.
Lap 57 – Max Verstappen overtakes Charles Leclerc for fourth. Lewis Hamilton is two seconds ahead. It won’t take long for the next battle to start.
Lap 61 – The gap between Norris and Piastri is now closer to five seconds and the radio conversations are the main point of interest at this moment. It seems Norris is adamant that his Championship lead takes priority over everything. He continues to argue with the team. And refuses to hand over the position.
Lap 62 – Max Verstappen is right on Lewis Hamilton’s tail and Verstappen goes close to passing around turn three but pulls out. This is for the final podium spot.
Lap 63 – Verstappen dives past Lewis Hamilton into turn one but there is contact as the Red Bull’s rear wheel clips the Mercedes and Max goes a little airborne. And by a little, we mean a lot. He obviously loses third to Hamilton while in the air, and then Leclerc a few corners later. The Red Bull is plenty strong though, as Max keeps going.
Lap 65 – The lead for Norris over Piastri is now over five seconds and the question still remains whether he will hand over the position. The gap on track, and Championship position argues with Norris, but he may regret the long term effects of his actions.
ORDER – NOR PIA HAM LEC VER SAI PER RUS TSU STR
Lap 67 – Team tell Lando Norris “Please do it now”.
Lap 68 – Lando Norris slows down on the straight and lets Oscar Piastri past. Norris made his point, but whether he has done some damage within the team remains to be seen.
FINAL LAP – Oscar Piastri hurries around his final lap, with his team mate right on his tail, to win his first Grand Prix. But it all feels a little hollow if we’re honest given the last part of the race. We know Oscar isn’t one for too much emotion, but even he sounds like he isn’t really enjoying the first win the way so many others have, including his own team mate recently. Lando Norris gives Piastri plenty of nothing in the post race warm down. The bit where the drivers are chatting might be interesting. Or not.
FINAL ORDER (Across the line) – PIA NOR HAM LEC VER SAI PER RUS TSU
Here we go through the field and highlight the very best (Great) of the race, and the plodders, the over-ambitious, the out of luck, and simply hopeless (Grape).
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 /-2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
THE GREAT-EST – OSCAR PIASTRI
Drove a near-perfect race. Stuffed by his team’s tactics again. But gets his first win.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
LANDO NORRIS – Took pole position. Probably would have won the race if not for his team’s involvement, but then again, only took the lead because of his team’s involvement. His petulance post race was a little ordinary.
CHARLES LECLERC – A decent race in a car that is probably fourth best at the moment.
LEWIS HAMILTON – Takes the final podium, and the Mercedes looks increasingly competitive.
THE GRAPE-EST – McLAREN
Stuff McLaren. With another bit of strategy have turned a great and joyous 1-2 into misery and potential team dis-harmony for the rest of the season.
DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS
SERGIO PEREZ – Nothing better when you’re under pressure for your F1 seat than to put your car into the barriers and set a time up to then not good enough to escape Q1. Another appalling Saturday. Sunday is the usual story of recovery to mask the ills, but the car, which isn’t as world beating as 2023, should be beating more cars than it currently does in the hands of Perez.
GEORGE RUSSELL – Looked on track to be in the mix for pole, ended up doing his final Q1 lap in the mixed conditions too early and was cut in the first qualifying section. Ended up getting minor points, but they should have been major points.
MAX VERSTAPPEN – Struggling to get used to having to drive a car that isn’t a million times better than anyone, so it is entertaining to hear his team radio. Still, he gets plenty out of it. A late clash with Hamilton drops him to fifth.
ALPINE – Didn’t have another crack in qualifying Q1 as the track dried, so ended up at the back of the grid. Pierre Gasly’s decent recovery drive ended up in the race’s first DNF. Again.
Was it a good race, loads of action, a tense ending, a surprise result or DNF, or just a big, fat, snooze-fest?
We rate the big race itself, so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
ON TRACK ACTION – 3 / 10
An exciting first few corners with the two McLarens and Max Verstappen, but soon turned to battles for 11th, and pit stop coverage. The ending added a little more tension than the first part of the race.
ANY SURPRISES? – 3 / 5
Oscar Piastri sprung a decent surprise at the start by jumping his team mate and leading comfortably. Mid race too, the McLaren tactics of appearing to stuff the race leader Oscar Piastri.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 4 / 5
Not sure if it is track dependent, but this looks like the turning point of McLaren being outright faster than Red Bull. Of course they are certainly faster than one Red Bull.
ENDING 9 / 10
A slightly dull race came alive after the second pit stops when McLaren chose to pit Lando Norris first to cover Max Verstappen on behalf of Norris. So it became a guessing game of if/when McLaren would swap back positions or not. The Verstappen-Hamilton clash, and Verstappen’s radio in general in quite entertaining.
OVERALL RATING 19 / 30
A reasonably dull race came alive thanks to McLaren.
2024 F1 Race Rankings
R12 – British Grand Prix…25/30
R11 – Austrian Grand Prix…27/30
R10 – Spanish Grand Prix…19/30
R09 – Canadian Grand Prix…22/30
R08 – Monaco Grand Prix…17/30
R07 – Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix…23/30
R06 – Miami Grand Prix…23/30
R05 – Chinese Grand Prix…15/30
R04 – Japanese Grand Prix…18/30
R03 – Australian Grand Prix…23/30
R02 – Saudi Arabia Grand Prix…9/30
R01 – Bahrain Grand Prix…13/30
2024 F1 Season Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the race soon as it is currently being calculated and will be ready on Monday.
Why not check the latest race ratings – 2024 British Grand Prix Ratings
Or check out our 2023 Season Driver Rankings and Stats
