How Verstappen Won From Tenth | 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix

What's surprising me is Russell starting on the soft tyre and Sainz and Leclerc, the two Ferraris, on the medium compound tyre. Verstappen on the soft tyre, so quite a mixture out there actually of what they think is the right strategy. 15 seconds. Last car approaching the back of the grid. Finally though, we are ready and everyone is lined up on the grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Lights out and away we go and it's a decent reaction from George Russell and also from Carlos Sainz, who covers over his teammate Charles Leclerc. Russell ahead, going round the outside, Charles Leclerc. Russell's got the inside line, defends and cuts off Carlos Sainz. Decent start from Max Verstappen as well. You can see immediately the Ferraris have fired their tyres up. They've got grip, they've got confidence. Russell really struggling to get the car to turn in and stay on the racing line. And look at this, look at Verstappen. Max Verstappen has got a great run on Fernando Alonso and he's ahead of him, going into Turn 4. Down the inside goes Max Verstappen on Esteban Ocon. We've seen these two tangle in the past. That was a lovely clean move, under braking for Max Verstappen. And box, Carlos, box. Box, box, they say, for Sainz at the Ferrari. I didn't expect that. I really didn't expect that. And not a D because he's carried on. So this is the dummy. That's the dummy call from Ferrari that they kind of put up to try and put off their competitors. Was that the case at Mercedes? Was George Russell coming in anyway? But they definitely throw a dummy call. They're not the only team to do it. Right front was a bit tardy, wasn't it? Just a touch. But whether it was the dummy call, whether that put Mercedes off or not, we'll find out after the race. But Verstappen is also coming in. So he was closing right up to the rear of Lewis Hamilton and was pushing hard as our race leader George Russell comes out now. It's important for him to be at least ahead of one of the Alpines and he's going to be ahead of Fernando Alonso. But there's a fight going to go on now, down towards Turn 2. And this is crucial for George Russell today. He's going the long way round the outside. He'll get the inside line into the next corner. Russell stays ahead then of Fernando Alonso. Let's see what Ferrari and now Sainz is in. So they're covering that off. They've only got as far as the soft-tired Mercedes. So last year, the undercut was absolutely massive here in terms of stop first before your competitor and it gives you an advantage. But Ferrari going for the overcut now with Carlos Sainz. And it was a slow stop. Charles Leclerc has gone through. Lewis Hamilton has gone through. Sergio Perez has gone through. Where's George Russell? He's right behind Esteban Ocon. And as we see now, Carlos Sainz coming out of the pit lane. Russell goes through and he's preserved his advantage over Carlos Sainz. And Ocon goes through as well. But a DRS really helped George Russell down the straight to get ahead of Esteban Ocon. And Box now. Box, pit confirm. And Leclerc then, it looks like, well, he'll be going straight on to medium. So it's a two-stopper. Two-stopper, as you say. For Charles Leclerc. Probably going medium, medium, soft, I would imagine. Right, George Russell just making his way towards Turn 13 as Charles Leclerc stops. Leclerc inherited the lead of this race when George Russell made his stop. No one's really interested in Sir Red Bull. Well, Adrian Newey and Christian Horner aren't in that Ferrari pit stop. 2.9 seconds, fairly slick. He was certainly faster than George Russell's stop. Russell comes now down towards Turn 1 and ahead of Charles Leclerc. But here's crucial for Ferrari. Leclerc, by carrying on for a few more laps, is ahead of his teammate, Carlos Sainz. Leclerc at 123.2. And now he's homing in. He'll get DRS all the way down this straight. And the short straight then from Turn 1 to Turn 2. Look at him closing up. What a wonderful view. What a realistic view that is. Russell gives him one car's width on the outside. Has a little wobble, though, in the middle of the corner. That's going to slow him down. And this is then the chance for Leclerc. Down the outside, there's a bit of grip out there. Russell will run it wide, but he'll tighten. He'll have a tight line into 3. But he lives for another lap in the lead. Both going to be stopping again. So it's not total heartbreak for Charles Leclerc if he can't get past George Russell in terms of an on-track move. But they would dearly love to to make their strategy just a little bit easier between now and the chequered flag. And Leclerc is about a tenth of a second closer to George Russell, going into the DRS zone. And down he goes! Around the outside, Charles Leclerc. George Russell will try and fight that back. But with an extra helping of DRS, Charles Leclerc's got it covered. That was a brilliant move there from Charles Leclerc. Beautiful car control from both of them. Fox and Pit confirm. Max and Fox, Pit confirm. Strat 12 in Pit lane. Verstappen is going to come in. Unless this is the dummy call. No, this is the serious call. Down at Red Bull for Max Verstappen to pit. He did come in on lap 16. So his second and what should be final pit stop on lap 39. 1.4 second stop, even though a bit of brute force was needed to apply that right rear tyre. Yeah, so he puts him behind Lewis Hamilton, of course, and behind his teammate Perez, who will quite quickly get out of the way. He needs to stay ahead of this Haas, if he can. Yes, he has. I'd be worried now if I was George Russell and Carlos Sainz-Martin. Fox, Fox, Fox, a push out. This undercut could pick Max Verstappen up two places. Mercedes under pressure. And indeed, even Ferrari with that. So good move there from Red Bull. Ferrari are coming out into the pits. And is that Charles Leclerc coming in, I wonder? I thought it was just white banding on there. Yeah, we did. Charles Leclerc being told to Fox to go on to the hard compound tyre. Ted, to you. I think they've already lost it. I think they've already lost the undercut with Sainz. So, yeah, it is the Monaco pits. And it is the hard tyre that he goes on to. Wow, that's brave, based on how it's been going with everybody else. And George Russell pits as well onto the medium. How's this? Which makes more sense. So behind we have Pérez and Verstappen. Verstappen with new mediums. There's Pérez. There's Verstappen, who is now ahead of George Russell. Pérez on a different strategy. Will be asked to get out of the way pronto, like that, because Verstappen is on a roll. You said quite a while ago Verstappen could feature at the end of this race and could feature quite high. Well, he's probably got the undercut on Carlos Sainz. Charles Leclerc is on tyres at the moment that actually might not suit him very well. Verstappen's closing in on Charles Leclerc to make the overtake on the track. They go wheel to wheel. Verstappen goes a bit deep, but he makes that overtake stick. Have Ferrari made a bit of a blunder? Well, they had to go... They're not going to get a set of mediums to the 30 lap, but they had to go hard because they'd run medium-medium to that point. They've got to run two different compounds and they've left themselves really exposed against the flying Max Verstappen. Oh, no! He's had a little spin. I was going to say, he's the fastest man on the track. He's currently running ahead of Charles Leclerc, but he's had a moment there, coming out of the penultimate corner he stayed ahead of his teammate Sergio Pérez. I went on top of it as it spun. Charles Leclerc is ahead of this battle. DRS wide open for Max Verstappen once again. He is closer than he was on the previous lap to Charles Leclerc. Leclerc dived down the inside to cover off the Red Bull. In doing so, Max Verstappen now has a nice gap opening on the inside coming out of Turn 1 and Verstappen is back ahead of Charles Leclerc. Leclerc's got no traction on those concrete tyres. Sitting dark down there. And Boggs just had a poor shot. They've got a gap to Sergio Pérez who's running in sixth. It's going to pit Leclerc out behind Pérez but on faster, in theory, tyres. All the stories are being written for tomorrow about Ferrari's strategy again. In a season where already Ferrari have cost themselves dear in terms of reliability, in terms of accidents, as we saw at France last time out in terms of strategy calls, you can add the Hungarian Grand Prix to the list of question marks about this season in which they really, Martin, should be an awful lot closer, if not ahead, of Red Bull in the Championship. What a great victory for Max Verstappen and Red Bull. Led the 50th race of his career today. Takes the 28th victory of his career. Max Verstappen, from 10th on the grid, comes home to win the Hungarian Grand Prix. Yeah, we just had the right calls, right on the cards, the right tyres on the car all the time. Unbelievable, Max. That is right out there with your best. Unbelievable. Fantastic. Amazing result. Who would have thought when we woke up that we were going to win the race? That Ferrari debrief is going to be long and probably contentious. Today hasn't been good, the last Sunday hasn't been good, but overall the pace is there. We just need to get better at putting everything together. Oh my God, the hard work. So bad. That's why I said I wanted to stay on the mill as long as possible. The hard work, really bad. Was this the same for everyone or was this only for us? I think it was the same for everyone with the hard work. Why did we go on it? I mean, what was the reason then? Are we the only ones with three stops? At the front runners, yes. At the back, some people with three stops. And in the end, 70 laps, I think we ended up more or less where we deserved to be because we just didn't have the pace we had on Friday. Yeah, tough one. Very tough one. Yeah, you try your best for the strong race from your side. First up and won, Hamilton P2, then Russell P3, then behind you Perez, Charles P6, then Lando P7, and then also P8, Ocon and Vetter P10 and Charles Vatanen. So, what happened? The hard work was very bad. Why was this happen so quick? No, no graining or what? Yeah, the hard work was quite poor, we believe. I mean, none of the tyres were great today. Yeah, it was difficult on either of them. Can't see either of their two drivers being happy with the way that panned out for them.