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What the teams said – Race day in Hungary
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McLaren
Piastri had a better start than his team mate and squeezed through into the lead on the inside into Turn 1. From there, Piastri was controlling the race and the gap to his team mate through the first round of pit stops. But come the second round, the team opted to call Norris in first, which allowed him to undercut Piastri for the lead of the race. Ostensibly, that decision was made to cover off any threat from behind, but it left the team in an awkward position. They asked Norris repeatedly to cede the lead to his team mate – but Piastri was now four seconds behind. Much cajoling on the radio ensued, until Norris finally slowed down to give the lead back, so that Piastri could claim a maiden F1 win.
Oscar Piastri, 1st
"A very, very special day. This is the day I dreamed of as a kid, and to be standing on the top step of an F1 podium, with McLaren, is just incredible. While it may have been a little complicated at the end, I think we got ourselves into a good position at the start and then we were in control from there. I want to thank the entire team for an amazing effort and for giving us such a brilliant car. It’s a hell of a lot of fun racing with McLaren, so I can't thank the team enough for giving me the opportunity to be in F1. To now be winning together 18 months in is an unbelievable feeling."
__Lando Norris, 2nd
"An amazing day for us as a team, and a huge congratulations to Oscar on his first win. I'm so happy, it's been a long journey to get to achieving wins on merit, and that's exactly what we did today. Oscar had a great start and controlled the race from there, so well done to him – it was only a matter of time before he finished first. I can’t thank the team enough for their work and effort to get us here. Let’s keep pushing and fighting for wins each week."
Andrea Stella, Team Principal
"Today is a brilliant day for the team. To finish first and second is a testament to the hard work of every single team member at McLaren, for which I would like to thank them for their efforts and contribution to this incredibly positive result.
"The order of the drivers was altered for the final stint to make the safest call in terms of tyre life and to protect our P1 and P2 finish in case of any problems in the pit stops. Lando giving the position back embodies the values of what it means to be part of the McLaren Formula 1 Team and the culture we instil of being one team and putting the interests of the team first.
"We now keep our feet on the ground, keep building and will not get complacent. There is still a long season ahead and we need to continue to maximise every opportunity available to ensure we keep consistently scoring points and improving the car. We now look to Belgium for one final race before the summer break."
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Mercedes
Russell started on the hard tyre, ran a long opening stint to climb back into the points and didn’t put a foot wrong – bar being undercut by Perez in the second round of stops for seventh. But Hamilton had a more eventful race. He was briefly battling with Norris for third through the opening corners, before settling for fourth. He undercut Verstappen twice to grab third, defending with everything he had to keep the faster Red Bull at bay. The two made contact late on, but Hamilton was able to continue to grab his third podium of the season.
Lewis Hamilton, 3rd
"Firstly, a huge congratulations to McLaren on the one-two and Oscar (Piastri) on his maiden victory. They were incredibly strong today and deserved the result. Oscar has been doing a fantastic job ever since he got into F1, been very consistent, and it was only a matter of time before he got a win.
"The team has done a great job to continue making progress with our car. We knew we didn’t have the speed of Oscar or Lando (Norris) today, but we were able to secure the final spot on the podium. It was a challenge at times to keep Verstappen behind whilst also making the tyres last. Our battle at the end was a little hair-raising but that’s motor racing. I’m really happy to be back on the podium and for another solid points haul. We now head to Spa looking to finish the first half of the season on a high."
George Russell, 8th
"Congratulations to Oscar on his victory today. McLaren have been really strong, and he’s been driving really well so it is well deserved.
"We knew after yesterday’s issues in qualifying that we were likely aiming for ‘best of the rest’ today. We struggle a little more in these very hot conditions, so we weren’t quite able to achieve that. The Red Bull of Sergio Perez was quicker than we expected but we gave it a good go to get ahead of him. Getting P8 and fastest lap was still a solid recovery.
"We can also take the positives of the team being on the podium five races in a row. We have made consistent steps forward and the car has been performing much better in recent Grands Prix. Lewis drove a great race today and showed what the car was capable of. It is very close at the front between several teams now. We know we need to maximise every opportunity we have and execute clean weekends to score good points. We will be looking to do that starting next week in Spa."
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
"Claiming a podium finish, our fifth race in a row doing so, feels good. The McLarens were very strong today and out of reach for us in these hot conditions. Congratulations to them and Oscar; they deserved today’s victory. We were able to maximise the result with Lewis though and that is encouraging. To see Lewis get his 200th podium in F1, and his 151st with our team, was great.
"Yesterday’s setback with George meant he had to fight through the field. In the end, it was a good recovery from where he started. It was a challenging race for him with plenty of traffic in his pit window throughout much of the afternoon. Without that, he may have been able to claim one more position, but it was still a solid effort. We now head to Spa where the conditions will likely be cooler and hopefully that will suit us a little more."
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
"Firstly, well done to McLaren and Oscar. A 1-2 finish is a very difficult result to achieve, and they are setting a very high bar at the moment.
"It was great to see Lewis on the podium today. Going from P5 to P3 was a good achievement considering we had to get ahead of Verstappen to achieve that. We were able to maximise the result with him today as, without incidents, we simply didn't have the pace to race McLaren.
"With George we qualified well out of position yesterday. That denied him the chance to race for much more than the minor points positions. He made a good recovery, coming close to chasing down the Red Bull of Perez, but we'll make sure we take the learnings from yesterday and perform better in future.
"We now look ahead to Spa. We've still got work to do to be right at the front every weekend, but we're moving in the right direction. The energy and enthusiasm in the team is palpable. We've got a few days to regroup and prepare; it will be interesting to see how the W15 responds to cooler conditions than we experienced here in Hungary this weekend."
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Ferrari
Leclerc had a better start than his team mate, who was somewhat baulked by the three-way battle ahead. That saw Leclerc battling with Hamilton for P4, and the Ferrari man later closed in on the Hamilton – Verstappen fight thanks to a good tyre offset. In the end, he was set to settle for fifth until Verstappen’s late off, which earned him one extra place. As for Sainz, he had a lonely race in sixth, off the pace of the cars around him but comfortably ahead of those behind.
Charles Leclerc, 4th
"We turned it around today. We had a solid race, with the right tyre management and a good pace. A P4 is not the result we want of course and we know that we have lots of work ahead, however, we were in better form than expected.
"It’s difficult to overtake on this track and we had to manage overheating, being just behind Lewis (Hamilton) on the last stint, which was tricky. We took all our opportunities today and it’s good to bring home these points for the team."
Carlos Sainz, 6th
"A tough race for me. The start was not good and here in Hungary it’s quite crucial. That compromised the first two stints, having to overtake cars to get to P6, and from there onwards it was quite a solitary race. The last stint I could push a bit more after extending with the Hard tyre but overall, as we saw yesterday, we were lacking pace compared to the cars at the front this weekend. Belgium is a completely different track and we have to think what approach we want to take there with the car to try to finish the first half of the season with a good team result."
Fred Vasseur, Team Principal
"First of all, congratulations to McLaren for its great weekend in a Grand Prix that was a wonderful advertisement for Formula 1. On our side, we had a good fight with Mercedes and Red Bull. We got the most out of our package that we could this weekend. We have made a good step in terms of the car’s driveability but now we need to come up with a step forward in performance to close the gap of two to three tenths to McLaren.
"Charles got a good start moving up a couple of places early on. We had a very strong pace in the middle stint on the Hard tyre while it was a bit more difficult at the end on the Medium. With Charles we tried to undercut Verstappen but Hamilton pitted at the same time so we were blocked behind him.
"Carlos didn’t have the best of starts and then he had quite a solitary race bringing home the best result in the circumstances. If we look at the points scored, we were second today behind McLaren. Of course we cannot be happy just with this, but I think we are back on the right track."
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Red Bull
Verstappen had a great slipstream from Norris off the line and went three abreast into Turn 1 with both McLarens. Three into one didn’t go, Verstappen ran wide and returned to the track ahead of Norris – being asked to cede the position a lap or so later. That irked the Dutchman, as did the decision to pit him later than Hamilton twice, allowing him to be undercut on both occasions. A clearly frustrated Verstappen then tried to dive down the inside of Hamilton for the last podium position, locking up and hitting his old Mercedes rival. He bounced into the air, off the track and was lucky to come home fifth. The stewards looked after the race, and decided no further action was necessary.
As for Perez, he started on the hard tyre and a long first stint set up his race beautifully, as he recovered into the points from his lowly grid slot.
Max Verstappen, 5th
“Today was a tough race for us so naturally that frustrated me as I want things to be better. If you look at the whole race I don’t think we were fast enough; we unfortunately just didn’t have the pace and the strategy wasn’t working for us today. The high temperatures on the track also meant that the tyres overheated, especially when we were trying to overtake throughout the race, which was very tough. We got stuck behind cars and let ourselves get undercut and I think we just didn’t have our best day. We had to fight our way back and lost so much time that we lost touch with both the McLarens. As the pace of the car wasn’t as good, we really needed to capitalise on the strategy and we just didn’t manage to do that today. I need to look back at what happened with Lewis but I committed to the move and I don’t think I braked too late but we collided. I don’t think we could have beaten McLaren today but, from qualifying yesterday, I did think that P3 was on the cards, so it is a disappointing day all in all.”
Sergio Perez, 7th
“I think that was the maximum we could achieve today; overtaking was impossible in the first stint on the hard. It was an aggressive strategy to begin on the hard and it worked well for us, from the start it was about putting it all together, making the right calls and the right progress. My Team had to rebuild the car overnight and it was not one hundred percent on set-up, some correlation was off, so it’s positive I was able to feel at one with the car today and I am getting the feeling back, this is a good boost of confidence. The Team did an incredible job to get the car on track today after my crash, I need to maximise my own performance to match their hard work. The only thing that matters to me is my Team and the people working with me, I have to give my very best to them because they deserve it. I am here keeping my head down; I will keep improving and get back to my form. I think we have the pace to fight at the front, we showed it today and it is just a matter of time until we are back on the podium.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal
“It didn’t work out for us today. We seemed to have understeer and then losing that position at the start and conceding back to Lando affected us. We tried giving an overlap to give Max the pace but to no avail. The middle sector, in parts of the race was where we were looking competitive but there is plenty for us to look at to try and see how we can improve and come back stronger next weekend. Checo drove a good race today and his strategy, getting the undercut on George, worked well. He also showed good pace, made good overtakes and hopefully would have taken some good confidence from that for a strong performance in Spa.”
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RB
Both RB cars had bad getaways and dropped out of the points. Ricciardo was pitted early for some hard tyres, but he then got into traffic which marred his afternoon. Tsunoda manged to extend his first stint on the mediums superbly though despite high levels of degradation, and that set him up for an audacious one-stop race. Making his hard tyres last 41 laps, he came home in ninth place – just holding Stroll at bay on the closing lap to extend RB’s lead over Haas in the championship.
Daniel Ricciardo, 12th
“Today it was a long and frustrating race. We didn’t use the pace we had in the clear air. We were on the mediums at the start of the race and after only a few laps we pitted for new hards together with the other cars who started on softs, coming out in traffic. It’s even more frustrating because we were quick all weekend, and I felt like we have taken ourselves out of the race so early as we couldn’t fight cars that were coming much quicker on newer tyres.”
Yuki Tsunoda, 9th
“First of all, huge thanks to the mechanics and team who spent the night and this morning repairing my car in time for the race. It wasn’t easy after such a big crash and we had to change a lot of things, but because of their hard work we were able to score the points today - huge credit to the whole team. I’m very relieved I was able to make up for it after yesterday’s crash and particularly happy with my tyre management. I think it was a big race for us, especially as we were able to finish ahead of our competitors, and it’s a huge positive for the coming races.”
Laurent Mekies, Team Principal
“Over the past few weeks, everyone in Faenza and Bicester worked hard and effectively, delivering the upturn in performance we witnessed here in Hungary. Getting both cars into Q3 was proof of that, once again heading the midfield and the points we picked up today are a well-deserved reward for all that effort. Yuki’s race was sensational, and we were the only car daring to do a one-stop race, which allowed us to beat not only the midfield runners but also both Aston Martins. Yuki’s tyre management was second to none, and he made it stick to the end. The team also did a truly remarkable job in a short space of time by rebuilding Yuki’s car around a new chassis following his Q3 crash. Unfortunately, we got it wrong with Daniel and pitted him too early in heavy traffic, which lost him a chance to fight for points. His pace had been extremely strong all weekend long, and he demonstrated that again in the final stint of the race when he was finally able to find some free air and fight his way back. We certainly share his frustration, and we will learn and come back stronger next week. Now we move on to Spa, a very different challenge to the Hungaroring. We go there with the positives of our strong weekend here and will push very hard to get our car to work as best it can at this fast and flowing track.”
Guillaume Dezoteux, Head of Vehicle Performance
“Yuki finished P9 and brought us two precious points which reward the hard work the team has put in overnight repairing his car from the crash yesterday in qualifying. Both cars had a good start but lost positions to the soft runners in the opening laps. Some cars started to pit early, and we reacted with Daniel, which put him in heavy traffic and did not allow him to use his pace. Anticipating his second stop allowed us to gain a few positions back and Daniel could show good lap times, but it wasn't enough to end up in the points for him and he finished P12. With Yuki, we decided to extend the first stint. His good tyre management and the consistency of lap times opened the possibility of doing a one-stop race, which is what we went for. This strategy allowed us to beat the two Aston Martins which is a great achievement, concluding this weekend on a high note.”
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Aston Martin
Aston Martin went aggressive, starting both cars on the softs. That worked in that both cars made up places – but early pit stops then hampered them later on. Alonso was pitted early again second time around, running out of tyre life late on but Stroll was able to extend his second stint. As such, he had better tyre life late on to fight his way back into the points.
Fernando Alonso, 11th
“Unfortunately we missed out on the points today and didn't quite optimise our race. We pitted quite early and from that point on we had quite a long race ahead managing the tyres. It's the first long distance we've done with the new package, so we need to go and analyse our new updates and learn more ahead of Belgium next week.”
Lance Stroll, 10th
“It was a difficult race for us. I don't think we optimised the strategy and we were not competitive enough. We struggled with tyre degradation, too. We've got a lot of work to do as a team ahead of the next round. Spa is a very different track, so hopefully that suits our car more.”
Mike Krack, Team Principal
“We leave Budapest with a hard-earned point, but there seems to have been potential for slightly more today. Lance and Fernando drove well, making strong overtakes across their stints. The focus now shifts to Spa and we will continue pushing hard to be more competitive next weekend and have a positive finish before the summer break.”
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Haas
Magnussen had a great start on the softs, Hulkenberg a terrible one – leading to the German pitting at the end of the first lap. That helped him climb through the field, but he lost those places when he had to pit early again. He just about made his tyres last 40 laps late on, coming home 13th on a day where their rivals RB managed to pick up two points in the fight for sixth in the championship.
FACTS AND STATS: Hamilton hits 200 podiums as Piastri becomes first winner born this century
Nico Hulkenberg, 13th
“It was a poor start and a pretty bad first lap that caught us out and put us on the back foot, and when you don’t have track position – which it’s all about around here – it’s very difficult. When you’re running behind in dirty air, you have to try something and push your luck, and an early stop was the answer to that. We then had two huge stints to do with hard tyres, and we knew that would be challenging as we couldn’t make the tyre last long enough. Over one lap, we were pretty competitive but over long runs, not so much, a bit similar to Monaco.”
Kevin Magnussen, 15th
“We rolled the dice a little bit with the soft tyre start, which a couple of others did, and I gained a lot of positions on the first lap. I got overcut by a few cars and ultimately, we didn’t have the pace today to fight for points. I feel we could’ve done better in qualifying, but looking at the pace today I don’t think we were in the running for points anyway. Still, we take another lesson from this weekend and then we hope Spa is better.”
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal
“It was quite a tough afternoon. Kevin had a pretty decent Lap 1, whereas Nico lost positions in the opening lap. From that point on, we needed to get Nico back into the points and try something different, so we pitted early, but ultimately we didn’t have the pace. On Kevin’s side, because his position was P15, we needed to try something different and he had a brilliant lap one getting to P10, but because he was on the soft tyre he still had to pit early. I don’t think it worked really and when you see competitors execute a brilliant one-stop strategy, finishing in the points, we need to look into it. Onto the next race in Spa, and with the level of downforce there, it hopefully will suit us better. We need to regroup and finish the first half of the season on a high before the shutdown.”
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Williams
Albon had an unlucky day, he was caught in traffic behind the Aston Martins so pitted early, only to pick up more traffic after his stop. Add in a slow second stop, and he was last – doing well to climb back to P14. Sargeant likewise couldn’t make too many moves, despite a late stop for some soft compound tyres.
Alex Albon, 14th
"We need to understand what happened today. I think we missed it a little with the strategy; if we didn’t come out behind Fernando on the first stop, we would’ve been fine but as he was playing the team game and helping to back us up to help Lance, it impacted our race. We were planning the two-stop then changed to three-stop, so I started to push the tyres, however, we reverted to two, so you have to extend your stint and by that point, the tyres are gone. We had a great start today and despite being disappointed, we’ve gathered valuable learnings in these hot conditions."
Logan Sargeant, 17th
"Today was okay. I was disappointed with my start and, around here, it’s an uphill battle from there. From a pace perspective, it was a good day and overall, apart from my start, I’m happy with my weekend. The car felt better here than last year, which is a positive, but it was a difficult race. I did my best to come back through as best I could and we tried to be aggressive with stops, but it didn’t really work out and we found ourselves in dirty air, increasing degradation. We’ll keep going and try harder to pull it together in Spa."
Sven Smeets, Sporting Director
"With the cover of clouds disappearing slowly before the race start and the high track temperatures appearing again, we knew it was going to be crucial to find free air and stop at the right moments. Alex had a great start and found himself stuck behind the Astons. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get past Fernando after the first stop, who was working to help his teammate’s race. From then, it became a difficult race for Alex finally finishing in P14. Logan had a difficult start and lost positions, finding himself constantly in dirty air after every stop but showed flashes of good pace throughout his stints. A disappointing afternoon but we have learned a lot again in these hot conditions, making progress since Barcelona which is promising. Now we turn our heads to Belgium which should suit our car much better."
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Kick Sauber
Kick Sauber opted to split strategies, pitting Zhou with the other gaggle of midfield runners, but leaving Bottas out much, much later. But in the end it didn’t make a difference, with 19 cars finishing and so very little opportunities for the midfield to score. Both two-stopped, but even Bottas’ fresher tyres late on couldn’t make enough of a difference for him to fight back against the Haas of Magnussen again.
Valtteri Bottas, 16th
"In the end, there just wasn’t enough action around us to make anything out of this race. Sometimes we got a bit unlucky with the timing of the blue flags, and lost some time as a consequence, but the main issue is still the lack of race pace. We don’t have enough to make it into the top ten on merit and today, with the straightforward race we had in the midfield, we couldn’t go anywhere. The race had actually started ok, but once it all stabilised, we couldn’t keep up with the RBs: we left our first stop quite late to have tyre advantage at the end but, as always, it’s not easy to make progress even when you have tyre advantage. Still, it’s been an overall better performance this weekend than in the last couple of events: the upgrades helped us and will do so in Spa as well, so we need to keep making progress in this direction. The team is improving, but we need to keep pushing all together to make another step forward.”
Zhou Guanyu, 19th
“This weekend has shown that our one-lap pace made a step in the right direction; however, we don’t see the same in terms of race pace. Today, my race was compromised after the first stop: the early pit stop was to cover our rivals and protect Valtteri, but it didn’t work out as planned. It meant I had to manage my tyres, resulting in a lonely and uneventful race. While the new upgrade package on Valtteri’s car indicates progress, we still struggle with high fuel loads, and neither of us had a chance to make it into the points. Our biggest task now is to stay focused and motivated as a team: we need to understand and learn more about the upgrade package when we both have it after the summer break, so we can start afresh, close the gap, and become more competitive.”
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative
“Today’s race has been quite a difficult one for us: we unfortunately had the confirmation that both our race pace and our consistency across different tyre compounds are not sufficient to fight for the points right now. We knew this from Friday, when the race simulations showed that, compared to our direct competitors, we had more degradation and that we were lacking pace. Today’s race was just not as good as we wanted, although we tried to differentiate the strategies of our drivers, pitting Zhou earlier to potentially create gaps for Valtteri. After the positives we saw in qualifying thanks to the new updates, there is still performance to be found in race trim and especially in dirty air. We saw Valtteri do some overtaking maneuvers, on Ricciardo at the beginning of the race and on Sargeant and Ocon at the end, when he finally ended up chasing Magnussen. It didn’t change the end result for us, but we saw we could fight with our rivals on track. It was hard for Zhou: we chose to pit him earlier to cover Magnussen, Ocon, Alonso and Ricciardo: we knew the second and third stints would be hard for him, but in the end, pace wasn’t there for him either. On a positive note, all four pit-stops today have been consistent and fast: it is testament to the hard work done by our people, mechanics here at the track and design office in Hinwil, to fix the issues we had earlier in the season. With this spirit, which shows we can react and improve with the work of everyone in the team, we need to look forward to the next races. There is still a lot of work ahead of us, but it’s work that will pay dividends not just after the break, but also in 2025.”
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Alpine
Starting Gasly from the pit lane after taking on some new PU components, the Frenchman’s day didn’t improve when he was forced into another retirement with a suspected hydraulics issue. That’s his second DNF in two races, both gearbox related, which is far from ideal. Ocon made a great start though, climbing up through the field. But he lacked race pace and came home down the field after a late third pit stop for some soft tyres.
Esteban Ocon, 18th
“It was a disappointing day and weekend overall. Apart from the start and the opening laps - where we made up four places - there is nothing too much to say about the race. We need to sit down and review but looking back we probably pitted too early in the first stint trying the undercut and should have extended. Then we needed to box towards the end as the tyres had no grip left. We have plenty of things to analyse and improve on - operationally, performance-wise and reliability - from this weekend. We need a good reset before Spa next week and try to finish on a positive note before the summer break.”
Pierre Gasly, DNF
“It’s been a frustrating weekend. I started from the Pit Lane after introducing a new battery into my pool of Power Unit components. Our early pace looked promising so we extended the first stint to make up some positions. Our strategy looked like it was going to work out so it feels like we missed a real opportunity as we had to retire the car with a hydraulic leak at the halfway point. It’s a tough end of another challenging weekend for us. We just have to be better and we need to look into our issues and understand why they happen. We move on and we will continue to work on it in order to get on top of these things. We must ensure that we do not repeat these mistakes and come back stronger next weekend in Belgium.”
Bruno Famin, Team Principal
“After yesterday’s compromised Qualifying, we decided strategically to introduce a new battery to Pierre’s Power Unit pool, which meant he started from the Pit Lane. Pierre did a solid job on his first stint to be in sync with the cars who finished close to the points at the end of the race. We had a hydraulic leak and we absolutely need to get rid of these recurring problems. On Esteban’s side, we were in line with the early stoppers but track position is key at this circuit but we were not able to manage the tyres as well as planned. We have an immediate chance to do a much better job in Spa-Francorchamps next weekend where we must target a positive end before the summer break.”
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Pirelli
Mario Isola, Motorsport Director
“I think the 310,000 spectators who came to the Hungaroring this weekend and the millions watching on TV and through other channels around the world must have enjoyed themselves. The weekend began like a game of chess and then reached its peak with a very closely contested and open race in which the lead changed hands seven times.
“With temperatures pretty similar to those we had seen in Friday’s second free practice session, the Medium probably turned out to be the most efficient compound overall: if it had not been for the collision with Hamilton, Verstappen would almost certainly have finished third. But the Hard, which was definitely the most used compound, was also competitive, not just on the two Mercedes, but on other cars too. In the end, I think this race once again demonstrated how important it is for the teams to carefully work out which are the compounds best suited to their cars, as well as showing how the current range of tyres lets us see how different strategy choices work out on track. After all, that is actually the main objective set for us every year by the FIA, Formula 1 and the sport’s other stakeholders, namely to provide tyres that are first and foremost a guarantee of the maximum possible safety, while allowing the teams and drivers to exploit their potential to the full. That what we try our best to achieve, not just in Formula 1, but also in the two junior categories, for which we are the sole tyre supplier.”
HIGHLIGHTS: Enjoy the action from a controversial Hungarian GP as Piastri claims maiden F1 victory
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