As expected, defending Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton easily won the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix. With the exception of a brief pit crossover period early in the race, Hamilton nearly led from start to finish as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen clung onto second place in front of Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas, for the three podium positions.
The race began on a wet track and all cars were on heavy wet tires as Hamilton sped away easily and quickly, but Bottas botched his start and dropped to sixth while Verstappen launched himself into third from his seventh-place starting spot on the grid. Although the track was wet, there was no rain, so two laps into the race, most of the field began hitting the pits to change to intermediate wet tires. That pit crossover briefly gave Verstappen the lead for a few laps.
By the sixth lap, Hamilton was back out in the lead and it took him only eight laps to build a double-digit second lead, 15 laps later he had a 15-second lead and he would later build the lead to slightly more than 25 seconds before making a late-race pit stop to capture and extra point for the fastest lap of the race.
With the victory, Hamilton now has five-point lead over his Mercedes teammate, Bottas, in second place, with Verstappen leading a pack of others in the distant race for third place overall in the drivers’ championship series.
2020 Hungarian Grand Prix Top 10
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes
4 Lance Stroll Racing Point
5 Alexander Albon Red Bull
6 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari
7 Sergio Pérez Racing Point
8 Daniel Ricciardo Renault
9 Kevin Magnussen Haas
10 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren