Driver Ratings From The 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix
Calum Gill 11:34 02/08/2021
We have just witnessed arguably the best Formula 1 race of the 2020's so far.
From Esteban Ocon winning his first Grand Prix, to Sebastian Vettel being disqualified a few hours after the conclusion of the race due to an inadequate fuel sample being given to the stewards, the Hungarian Grand Prix had it all.
Here - in championship order - are my driver ratings from the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 8.0
Qualified: 1st Finished: 2nd
Hamilton had a solid qualifying, in which he took pole position over teammate Valtteri Bottas by 0.315 seconds. In the race, he made a good getaway, in order to not get caught up in the mess that was at turn 1. After the subsequent red flag, he was the only driver not to pit at the end of the formation lap, meaning that only he took the start. After pitting at the end of that lap, Hamilton dropped to stone last, but he battled his way back through the field, undercutting title rival Max Verstappen, and finishing a respectable third place, which later became second after Sebastian Vettel's disqualification. Not the weekend that he was hoping for, but you will always take going top of the championship as a positive.
Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 6.75
Qualified: 3rd Finished: 9th
Verstappen could only manage third place on the grid after being stuck behind Hamilton on his final out lap in Q3, as well as balance issues he had been experiencing throughout the weekend. This meant the Dutchman had to settle for P3. At the start, Verstappen got caught up in all the chaos, being hit by Lando Norris' McLaren, and subsequently losing his right hand side bargeboard. This heavily compromised Verstappen's race, as he was unable to pass Mick Schumacher's Haas for a substantial number of laps. For the rest of the race, Verstappen held down P11, before passing Daniel Ricciardo within the final ten laps. Verstappen was promoted to 9th after Vettel's DSQ.
Lando Norris (McLaren) 7.25
Qualified: 6th Finished: DNF
Norris' could only manage sixth place in quali, after a couple of mistakes on his final flying lap. He had already had an unusually uncomfortable passage through Q1 and Q2 Saturday, but it counted for nothing on Sunday. This was because in the first braking zone of the race, Valtteri Bottas braked far too late, and tail-ended Norris. Norris then went into Verstappen, giving the Dutchman damage. The Briton was able to get his stricken McLaren back to the pits, but the team retired the car during the red flag due to damage on the floor and rear of the car.
Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) 2.0
Qualified: 2nd Finished: DNF
Bottas' weekend wasn't going all too badly post qualifying. After all, he had put his car in the position that Mercedes would have wanted him to, alonside teammate Lewis Hamilton on the front row. However, his weekend went downhill from there, when the Finn had a load of wheelspin off the line and slipped to fifth, then made a disastrous misjudgement and locked up when he hit the brakes behind Norris. This eliminated him, as well as Norris and Sergio Perez, who got caught by Bottas' stricken car heading for the wall. In a season where you get the feeling Bottas is fighting for his drive, this was a disastrous weekend.
Sergio Perez (Red Bull) 5.5
Qualified: 4th Finished: DNF
Perez had suffered from the same balance issues as Verstappen, but could not find away around them as effectively as his teammate. This showed with a gap of over half a second to Verstappen in qualifying. In the race, he was battling with Norris for third into the first corner on the outside line, only to be collected by the Bottas/Norris/Verstappen collision. That brought his race to an immediate end. He was unfortunate to be taken out, as he was well positioned and an innocent bystander in the chaos.
Carlos Sainz Jr (Ferrari) 7.5
Qualified: 15th Finished: 3rd
Sainz was looking good for a good place on the grid in qualifying, until he crashed out in Q2 at the final corner, due to - what he said - a tailwind of 35-40 kph. This forced him to start 15th in the race. He leaped to fourth thanks to the first-corner chaos, although slipped behind Tsunoda during the pitstops to change to slicks ahead of the standing restart thanks to being held for traffic before he could leave his pitbox. After spending the first stint losing time behind Tsunoda and Latifi, he jumped them with an overcut. The timing also allowed him to undercut Alonso, although he couldn’t hold off the charging Hamilton, which added up to fourth-on-the-road but third place factoring in Vettel’s exclusion.
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 6.25
Qualified: 7th Finished: DNF
During qualifying, Leclerc struggled with the feel of the car as qualifying progressed and the wind picked up, and given the Ferrari’s weakness in medium-speed corners it was perhaps no surprise to see Leclerc seventh. For a split second at the start of the Grand Prix, it seemed the first-corner accident had handed him second place. Then he was collected by Stroll, giving him race-ending damage.
Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri) 8.25
Qualified: 5th Finished: 5th
Gasly put in a superb effort in qualifying to be best of the rest behind Mercedes and Red Bull, and his best would have been good enough to pip Perez, had he not carried too much speed into some corners on his final flying lap. Gasly slipped to 11th at the start thanks to having to go the long way round the Bottas-induced Turn 1 accident, then slipped to 12th thanks to what he described as a “mess” in the pitlane that allowed Verstappen and Ricciardo to get ahead. But he drove an excellent race from there to recover to fifth after Vettel’s exclusion, making several key passes but also executing his strategy well. Thanks to a late pitstop, he was also able to pip Hamilton to the fastest lap point.
Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) 4.0
Qualified: 11th Finished: 11th
On Saturday, Ricciardo slumped to just under half-a-second off Norris and exit in Q2 at a circuit that requires far more rotation of the car and some longer corners. Turn 5 was a particular weakness of his. The Australian briefly looked set to benefit massively from the first-corner accident, before Leclerc was punted into him by Stroll. That gave him damage which he carried throughout the race, battling hard to keep Verstappen behind before eventually yielding, with soft-shod Raikkonen also picking him off before the chequered flag.
Esteban Ocon (Alpine) 9.75
Qualified: 8th Finished: 1st
Ocon was delighted to make it into Q3 for the first time since the Monaco Grand Prix, confirming that his return to form after struggles suspected to have been caused by a front suspension problem were eliminated at Silverstone. Things opened up beautifully for Ocon at the start, allowing him to pick his way through the carnage to run second. That became first when Hamilton stayed out at the end of the second formation lap and from there it was all about both covering Vettel and staying out of reach of Hamilton. A good middle sector on his in-lap, combined with Vettel’s slightly slow stop, ensured he covered the undercut and he absorbed pressure from the Aston Martin to the end, despite never being able to pull away. A brilliant drive gave the Frenchman a maiden F1 win.
Fernando Alonso (Alpine) 8.75
Qualified: 9th Finished: 4th
Alonso looked set to outqualify Ocon, but struggled for front grip early in the lap, particularly through Turn 2. That suggested the problem was the front tyres not quite being at the right temperature at the start of the lap, which he finished strongly. The Spaniard was unlucky at the start when he was hindered by both first-corner crashes, leaving him sixth at the restart having dived back past Russell at Turn 2. From there, he had a important role to play for Alpine, first sitting in Vettel’s pit window and, more crucially, brilliantly defending against Hamilton for 10 laps to delay the Mercedes driver’s charge through the field.
Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin) 8.0
Qualified: 10th Finished: DSQ
Vettel always looked to have a slight edge on team-mate Lance Stroll and, on a weekend where the Aston Martin was a marginal Q3 car at best, did a good job to take 10th. Vettel jumped to third at the first start, then to second thanks to Hamilton’s late stop to switch to slicks. He then settled into a race-long chase of Ocon, with a slightly slow pitstop compromising his undercut attempt. He never got a better chance than when Ocon was briefly hindered by Raikkonen shortly after the stops and had to settle for second - until he ran out of fuel and had to stop on the slowing-down lap, which hinted at the disqualification that was to come for only having 300ml of fuel for the mandatory one-litre sample.
Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) 6.0
Qualified: 16th Finished: 6th
Tsunoda struggled through high speed corner in qualifying, leading to a gap of a second to his teammate, and an early Q1 exit. In the race, he came through the first-corner chaos in fifth, which became fourth when he jumped Sainz in the pitstops at the standing restart. From there, he drove a defensive race and was unable to challenge Latifi ahead on track, but did undercut him when he made his relatively early stop on lap 22. Sainz and Alonso overcut him, while Gasly passed him on track as Tsunoda struggled in the second stint with his tyres, having had to push hard early.
Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) 2.0
Qualified: 12th Finished: DNF
Stroll was unable build on a promising Q1 and struggled a little with understeer, and as a result ended up a tenth off Vettel. The race was disastrous for Stroll, for he headed into Turn 1 too hot at the start and once he realised he was in trouble, it was too late to escape. He flung the car to the inside in an attempt to avoid contact but ended up triggering the second first-corner shunt after hitting Leclerc.
Nicholas Latifi (Williams) 7.5
Qualified: 18th Finished: 7th
Latifi looked to have a chance of outqualifying teammate George Russell for the first time, but a power unit problem during Q1 led to some hesitancy on the power coming out of several corners, and to him finishing a tenth behind Russell. Once Latifi had leapt up to third at the first corner, this was always going to be a race of minimising losses for the Canadian. And he did that well, holding third throughout the first stint. Tsunoda undercut him with an early stop, while Gasly, Alonso and Sainz overcut him. He was inevitably powerless to hold off Hamilton on track, but all that still added up to his first points finish in F1 in seventh, factoring in Vettel’s exclusion.
George Russell (Williams) 7.25
Qualified: 17th Finished: 8th
Russell had his worst qualifying session of the season, not getting out of Q1 for the first time this year. “Today we just did a fine job, but fine is not enough” was his summary. Russell finished the brief first part of the race in seventh after being hindered by the Stroll/Leclerc/Ricciardo crash a little more than Latifi, and was on course to take the lead after seven corners at the front of the group of cars that pitted before the standing restart after illegally using the slow lane to jump ahead in the pitlane. He gave back the places he had gained, dropping to seventh. He made a relatively early stop to cover Ricciardo and Verstappen, although was undercut by Hamilton. Gasly then overcut him, which added up to ninth on the road, eighth after Vettel’s exclusion, and the first points he has scored for Williams.
Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa-Romeo) 5.5
Qualified: 13th Finished: 10th
Raikkonen produced his best qualifying session performance of the season to match his best grid position of the year which was achieved via the Silverstone sprint. The Finn climbed to ninth at the first start, but a glitch with the pitstop light system when he pitted at the end of the second formation lap made the lights briefly turn to green, understandably leading to Raikkonen going and hitting Mazepin, ending the Russian's race. After taking the 10-second penalty at the end of lap 15, he had ground to make up but passed Ricciardo on lap 67 to take what would become 10th when Vettel was excluded.
Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa-Romeo) 3.5
Qualified: 14th Finished: 13th
Giovinazzi was pleased with his qualifying, despite only just escaping Q1, and losing out to teammate Raikkonen. The Italian gambled on stopping for mediums at the end of the first formation lap, then was one of 19 to switch to slicks at the end of the second formation lap. Unfortunately, he overcooked it on the way into the pits and was hit with a 10-second stop/go penalty for speeding, dropping him to last where he stayed, having failed to pass Schumacher in the closing stages.
Mick Schumacher (Haas) 6.25
Qualified: 20th (Didn't take part) Finished: 12th
Schumacher did not take part in qualifying, after crashing pretty heavily at turn 11 in the final practice. He benefitted from the early chaos to find himself 10th when the action resumed. He put in a spirited defence against title contender Verstappen, before tumbling down the order. But having been handed a big advantage over Giovinazzi by the Alfa Romeo driver’s penalty, he drove well to stay ahead - particularly when he came under pressure from Giovinazzi late on.
Nikita Mazepin (Haas) 5.0
Qualified: 19th Finished: DNF
While he always looked slower than Schumacher, he avoided the fate suffered by his team-mate and was able to run in qualifying. He lost a lot of rear grip over the course of the lap - but he was never going to challenge for Q2 anyway. The Russian survived the first start, only to be eliminated from the race when Raikkonen was released from the Alfa Romeo pit box in front of him during the pitlane chaos at the end of the second formation lap.
What do you make of these ratings? Comment your opinion below.
