Alpine’s Esteban Ocon won his first Formula One race, taking the victory in the chaotic 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix over Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel in second and Mercedes’ seven-time defending Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton in the third and final podium position.
Hamilton and his Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas occupied the front row, with Hamilton on pole position to start the race. But a heavy rain prior to the race start caused all drivers to begin the race on intermediate tires, which made for a slippery start, and McLaren’s Lando Norris passed him coming into the first corner, Bottas did not brake fast enough and plowed into Norris from behind, causing a domino effect crash which caused Norris to then crash into Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The result of the melee left Hamilton untouched in first but Bottas, Norris, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll all out of the race while Verstappen sustained heavy damage that compromised his car’s performance and only allowed him to finish in 10th place and score a single point.
The race was red-flagged to clean up the crash debris but on the race re-start, the track and had dried and Hamilton was left to start the race alone on the grid after the entire field elected to change tires while Hamilton did not. Hamilton could not get a large enough lead on the re-start and was forced to pit, dropping him all the way to last place on the fourth lap – allowing Ocon and Vettel to assume first and second place, respectively.
Hamilton spent the entire race gradually passing all the cars in front of him until Lap 48 when he went into the pit stop for a final time. But it took Hamilton 19 laps to pass Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, Jr. – leaving him with not enough time to catch Vettel and Ocon.
With the victory, Hamilton passes Verstappen in the overall 2021 F1 driver’s standings and now leads by six points with 192 points to Verstappen’s 186. Bottas was assessed a five-place grid penalty for the next race, the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix.
Top 10 Finishers In 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix
1] Esteban Ocon Alpine
2] Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin
3] Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
4] Carlos Sainz Jr. Ferrari
5] Fernando Alonso Alpine
6] Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri
7] Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri
8] Nicholas Latifi Williams
9] George Russell Williams
10] Max Verstappen Red Bull
