Defending Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton stormed back both literally and figuratively to take the 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix victory over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel claimed the final place on the podium in a distant third.
After suffering his worst race of the year last week at the 2019 German Grand Prix, where he finished 11th on the track [but received a gift promotion to ninth after both Alfa Romeos were assessed time penalties], Hamilton stormed back both from that performance as well as in today’s race, surging from second with a late pit stop to overtake a wheezing Verstappen on Lap 67 of the 70-lap race.
Verstappen had started on the pole position for the first time ever in his young F1 racing career and immediately zoomed off the line and kept the lead for the first 25 laps until he made a pit stop. Hamilton led the race for the next seven laps before he made his first pit stop, at which point Verstappen regained the lead. Unable to pass Verstappen on the track, Mercedes gambled and decided to pit Hamilton on Lap 49 to put on medium tires and catch Verstappen on his aging hard tires late in the race. The gamble paid off as Hamilton did just that on Lap 67.
Meanwhile, Vettel employed the same strategy on his teammate, Charles Leclerc, and passed Leclerc a lap later to claim the final podium position. Those were the only four cars to finish the race on the lead lap as Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas, bumped against Leclerc’s rear tire on the first lap and had to make an unscheduled pit stop on Lap Six to replace his damaged front wing, effectively knocking him out of the podium race and down into eighth place.
With the victory, Hamilton pads his already insurmountable lead in the 2019 Formula One driver’s standings with 250 points while Bottas sees his second place lead shrink as he sits at 188 with Verstappen moving up to 181, Vettel moving up to 156 and Leclerc moving up to 132.
2019 Hungarian Grand Prix Top 10
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari
5 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren
6 Pierre Gasly Red Bull
7 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo
8 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes
9 Lando Norris McLaren
10 Alex Albon Toro Rosso