Max Verstappen cruised to his seventh consecutive victory at this morning’s Hungarian Grand Prix, topping second-placed Lando Norris by a massive 33 seconds.
The win is also Red Bull’s 12th in a row, beating McLaren’s record of 11 in 1988. The margin of victory is also the greatest since Lewis Hamilton claimed the 2021 Russian Grand Prix by 53 seconds.
Sergio Perez overcame a difficult qualifying session to round out the podium, while Hamilton overcame a trying start to come home in fourth, one spot ahead of Oscar Piastri.
For Verstappen, the race was won off the line, the two-time defending champion holding the inside line at Turn 1 and running pole-sitter Hamilton wide to take the lead.
Piastri was the benefactor of the battle between the leaders, calmly taking the normal racing line to take second, while Hamilton dropped to fourth, behind Norris.
There was drama further back in the pack, with Zhou Guanyu getting off to a poor start from fifth and dropping back, only to rear-end the car ahead at Turn 1. This would trigger a chain collision which saw both Alpines return to the lane and retire with damage, and also resulted in Daniel Ricciardo and Guanyu dropping to the rear of the field.
Verstappen would quickly go about building his lead as Piastri also pulled a small gap over his teammate over the opening stages. Norris would be called into pit on Lap 17 and Piastri followed. This resulted in an undercut for McLaren, with Norris taking net second.
Following a second round of stops, Piastri would fall into the grasps of Perez, whose 1.9-second tyre change saw him make easy ground on the Australian. He was quick to get the move done, and went about chasing down Norris, who was nearly seven seconds up the road with 15 laps remaining.
Hamilton would also recover to move past Piastri later in the race and began closing down on Perez, who had undercut him earlier and also made ground on Norris.
Both drivers would run out of time to make a further impression on the podium, with Perez forced to settle for third, 3.87 seconds off Norris, and Hamilton fourth, a further 1.5 seconds back.
Charles Leclerc was the first Ferrari home in sixth but was relegated to seventh, incurring a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane.
George Russell, who had worked his way through the field having started 18th on the grid, was the benefactor of this, taking sixth spot.
Carlos Sainz was eighth ahead of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll rounded out the top 10 despite being lapped by the leader.
Ricciardo would recover to move from last to 13th in a solid return to the sport.
Header Image: Red Bull Content Pool (Photo by Peter Fox/Getty Images)
