F1 Reaction: Hungarian GP

All the fallout from arguably the craziest race so far in 2021.

Published by
Benjamin Millard

This year in Formula One has thrown up some insane results, however Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix could have been the most bonkers yet.

The race started with a bang, with the tricky conditions rendering the track smack bang in the middle of wet and dry, meaning turn one was always going to get a bit hairy.

And boy did it get hairy with Valterri Bottas in his Mercedes misjudging the braking zone, rear-ending Lando Norris' McLaren and setting off a chain reaction of pure carnage.

The chaos resulted in five cars retiring from the race, with Lando Norris, Sergio Perez, Lance Stroll, Charles Leclerc and of course the aforementioned Bottas all unable to continue after the carnage.

There were some disappointed reactions to the epic events of lap one.

Leclerc in anger compared the carnage to bowling, tweeting "Nice bowling game. So frustrating."

This of course produced some hilarious edits, such as this one.

Lando Norris took to Twitter as well to vent his disappointment.

The 21-year-old summed it all up with a sarcastic remark in the form of "Well that was a great race," and adequate response all things considered.

The session was then red flagged in order to clean up the huge amount of debris left on the track, with the pause in proceedings meaning that the surface was practically dry by the time it came to restart.

With this, Mercedes made an uncharacteristic strategic error in leaving Lewis Hamilton out on his intermediate tyres whilst every other car pitted for a set of slicks.

This move resulted in one of the strangest scenes ever in F1, with Hamilton the only one on the grid when the lights went out.

User F1Memes drew a very suitable comparison with the empty grid.

Nonetheless, the race started and Hamilton dashed around the circuit to box for dries, however the damage had been done with the time lost on the in-lap meaning he re-joined the race in last place.

Amongst the fracas in the pitlane Haas rookie Nikita Mazepin retired after Kimi Raikkonen's Alfa Romeo was released unsafely into the Russian's path, colliding with the Haas and rendering his car immobile.

Based on Mazepin's controversial past, fans weren't exactly sympathetic to 22-year-old's situation

Amazingly that meant the Alpine of Esteban Ocon lead the race, with four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel behind in the Aston Martin.

Probably even more amazingly was the fact that both the Williams cars of George Russell and Nicholas Latifi were inside the points, with Russell offering to sacrifice his race to give Latifi the best chance of getting a top ten finish.

The race went on with Hamilton plowing his way through the field in typical Hamilton fashion, with an intense battle with two-time world champion Fernando Alonso one for the ages.

The 40-year-old's race-craft and experience on show as two legends of the sport went toe-to-toe, with Alonso holding up the seven-time world champion to ensure he could not catch Ocon.

With this, Ocon never surrendered the lead from the restart and stormed home for his maiden F1 victory, an incredible feat for a man who came from near poverty to race at the highest level of motorsport.

The Frenchman tweeted afterwards, "I don't know what to write I'm lost for words, we just won the Hungarian Grand Prix i will forever remember this moment !!

"Thank you to @AlpineF1Team without them I would not have make it, and what a drive by the legend himself @alo_oficial he's part of this too #P1."

However the action didn't stop there, with the aforementioned Vettel being disqualified post-podium ceremony as the FIA could not take an adequate amount of fuel from his car, meaning that Lewis Hamilton claimed second place and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz moved onto the podium.

With this reclassification of results, it saw the Williams cars of Nicholas Latifi and George Russell move into P7 and P8 respectively, securing the teams first double-points finish in three years.

In parc ferme, Russell could not hide his happiness for the team he had been at for three seasons.

Fans shared the emotions with the young Brit on a special day for him, with Matt Gallagher from WTF1 exclaiming "Yep, I'm crying now."

With this, the season has now heated up even more with Lewis Hamilton (192 points) ahead on the driver's standings after a disappointing race from Max Verstappen (186 points), with the third placed Lando Norris not polling points after his retirement (113 points).

Meanwhile in the constructors Mercedes leads Red Bulls 256 points to 234 whilst McLaren sits in third on 133 points, a singular point ahead of Ferrari on 132.

Fans will now have an agonising wait for the next grand prix, with the mid-season break meaning the Belgian Grand Prix will take place on Sunday August 29.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published by
Benjamin Millard