Max Verstappen dominated the Hungarian Grand Prix to win by over half a second from Lando Norris and team-mate Sergio Perez on what was a record-breaking day for the team based in Milton Keynes.
Lewis Hamilton started in pole position for the ninth time in Hungary, the 104th of his career. He was going for his first win in 33 races, while Max Verstappen, who lined up on the front row alongside him, was going for his 44th race win.
It wasn’t a good start for Hamilton at all, with Oscar Piastri getting passed both Lando Norris and Hamilton and moving up to second place, behind Verstappen who took the lead going into turn one.
There was contact down at the first corner, with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon both suffering damage to their Alpine, causing both drivers to retire in the opening laps. This would be the second double DNF in a row for the Enstone team. Daniel Ricciardo was also involved and while he appeared to escape with minimal, if any damage, he did drop to 18th and last place. Zhou Guanyu was handed a five-second time penalty for causing a collision, the stewards deeming him responsible for the turn one incident.
At the halfway point, it was very much as you were at the front, with Verstappen holding a ten-second lead from Norris, with Piastri still in the final podium position.
As Piastri dived into the pitlane, so did Sergio Perez and after a 1.9-second stop from the Red Bull team, he was able to close the gap as their pair re-joined the track. McLaren was able to improve with Norris’ pit-stop, 2.1 seconds to get him back out on track in third place behind Verstappen and Hamilton.
The Piastri vs Perez battle was noted by race control with Perez pushing Piastri to the track limit and going onto the grass at the exit of turn two, however, this would not be investigated by the race stewards. Perez had got passed Piastri with this move, moving into fourth place and eventually third when Hamilton pitted.
A podium for Piastri would then become more unlikely when Lewis Hamilton got passed him into turn one, with the Australian putting up little fight against the seven-time World Champion.
With no safety cars and no real incidents after lap one, the Mercedes was starting to come alive on low fuel as Russell was able to put pressure on the Ferrari pair, getting past Sainz on the road and Leclerc once his five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit-lane was applied.
It was Max Verstappen who took the checkered flag first, helping to break the record for most consecutive F1 race wins. That brought their total up to 12 in a row, beating the previous record set by Aryton Senna and Alain Prost for McLaren back in 1988.
Lando Norris made another trip to the podium. showing that the McLaren pace is real and not just limited to Silverstone last time out. Perez rounded out the podium positions with Piastri and Hamilton rounding out the top five.
Russell, Leclerc, Sainz, Alonso and Stroll rounded out the top ten, with Daniel Ricciardo beating his team-mate Yuki Tsuonda on his F1 return with a 13th place finish.