We’re all going on a summer holiday, but not before we end the first half of the season with a detailed look at the latest F1 race. Our 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix Results, Lap by Lap Review & Summary will try and explain all you needed to know.
Our review covers what happened in the race so you don’t have to in the laps that matter. Plus we throw in our Race Ratings, the Best (Great) and Worst (Grape) drivers of the race weekend.
The 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix Results, Lap by Lap Review & Summary gives you just enough to catch up with. With just a small serving of cynicism. The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t have enough time.
And why not check out our latest Grand Prix Power Rankings which highlight our driver of the season so far and the last race.
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2022 Hungarian Grand Prix Results
THE LAPS THAT MATTERED
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Well here are the top laps where stuff happened. We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Setting the Scene – George Russell surprised most by stealing pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix – his first. Ferraris were quick, as was Lando Norris as ever. Red Bull struggled in the conditions and championship leader Verstappen ended up 10th and his team mate Perez 11th. So a mixed up grid of sorts, which is always welcomed.
Conditions are windy, cold-ish and with a big chance of rain. The rain appears to be just about to hit as the race is about to start. Rain is spitting so track is slightly wet but everyone still on dry tyres. Woof. Anything could happen, and it probably will.
TOP 10 GRID – RUS SAI LEC NOR OCO ALO HAM BOT RIC VER
Lap 1 – Pole sitter George Russell gets away ok and leads into the first corner despite massive pressure from the Ferraris. Lewis Hamilton makes the best start of the leading cars go from 7th to 5th. Verstappen is up to 8th as well from 10th. Magnussen sneaks into the top ten. Bottas and Ricciardo drop places. But there doesn’t appear to be any troubles on the first lap.
VIRTUAL SAFETY CAR – the VSC is called out to clean up some debris on turn two. Apparently Lance Stroll is involved, that’s not a surprise. With Albon it looks like. Vettel is hit by someone too but continues. He has announced his retirement at the end of the season. Given he’s 16th here, he probably wouldn’t mind an early retirement here too.
ORDER – RUS SAI LEC NOR HAM OCO ALO VER PER MAG
Lap 5 – Where’s all this rain then? Jerks. Nothing much at all. Confirmation a few laps later that no rain is expected for 30 minutes. At the front George Russell is two second in front and looking confident. Further back Max Verstappen pulls off a great move on Fernando Alonso for 7th, he is just under 10 seconds from the lead. Plenty of time to win this.
Lap 7 – A Red Bull passes an Alpine x2 on lap seven. Verstappen on Ocon for 6th and Perez on Alonso for 8th. Beauty of Max’s move on Ocon means Lewis Hamilton is next up, as we start rubbing our hands together in anticipation of trouble. Perez gets past Ocon a lap or so later. Ricciardo moves into the top ten as Kevin Magnussen is called into the pits for a broken front wing.
ORDER RUS SAI LEC NOR HAM VER PER OCO ALO RIC
Lap 11 – Sky F1 temporarily forget most of the most outside the UK doesn’t give a flying f–k about the UK and bang on about English F1 drivers and English sport in general. No mention of The Ashes to no surprise. Or the Commonwealth Games.
Lap 12 – Lewis Hamilton overtakes Lando Norris into turn one. Max Verstappen overtakes Lando Norris into turn two. Sad for Norris fans and casual gamblers, but great for fans of Ham v Max from last season as they are now going to be battling for 4th. Perez gets by Norris the next lap to fully extend the middle finger to him and McLaren.
Lap 13 – Max Verstappen angry and swearing at his team regarding his car. That’s a worry. For him anyway,
ORDER – RUS SAI LEC HAM VER PER NOR OCO ALO RIC
Lap 15 – Lando Norris – used to dropping positions – pits and drops some more. His early pitstop is punished by a slowish pitstop and ending up behind Nicholas Latifi. Talking of Latifi, we have caned him this season, and rightly so, but hats off to his P1 in P3 on the Saturday.
Lap 17 – George Russell pits from the lead, and comes out of the pits in 6th and has to battle Fernando Alonso for a few corners on colder tyres. Helped by the fact that Max Vertappen pits too.
Lap 18 – Sainz pits from the inherited lead, a slow stop means he ends up behind George Russell, and Ocon for fun. Still Leclerc, Hamilton and Perez to pit. Perez conveniently pits on lap 19 as the previous sentence was being typed. Perez ends up in big traffic in 10th.
Lap 21 – Charles Leclerc stays out for the time being, racing against his team mate for second. He pits at the beginning of lap 22, this will be tight with Sainz. Leclerc comes out in front of Sainz with half a second to spare. He certainly proves he was the fastest Ferrari car. Eliminating the chance of Ferrari stuffing up the strategy for a change.
ORDER – RUS LEC SAI VER OCO HAM PER NOR BOT ZHO
Lap 24 – Daniel Ricciardo overtakes two Alpines in two corners. Ocon comes out of pits, determined to stay in front of team mate Alonso. But all he does is stuff up Alonso’s defence of Ricciardo and the McLaren gets by both Alpines. Lovely. Possibly a season highlight.
Lap 26 – Away from the battle for tenth, Leclerc has closed within a second of leader George Russell. And the gap is reducing. Russell wobbles out of turn one two laps later but somehow stays ahead of Leclerc. But is seems somewhat inevitable. But it’s a good battle in the meantime.
Lap 31 – Charles Leclerc dives into the lead into turn one around the outside and takes the lead from George Russell. What a move. Good driving from both, but Leclerc has the slightly faster car right now.
Lap 35 – Halfway point and the battle at the front has calmed down a bit. Leclerc looks the race winner without bad luck, driver error, or shit strategy from his team…..hang about, hasn’t most of that happened to Leclerc this season? Champagne and Ferrari flags back on ice for now then.
ORDER – LEC RUS SAI VER HAM PER NOR RIC STR OCO
Lap 39 – Max Verstappen pits for new tyres but the worry is there are spots of rain.
Lap 40 – Charles Leclerc pits for tyres, as does George Russell. Ferrari give Leclerc hard tyres which looks a mistake, which would be consistent with Ferrari strategy this season. Russell takes Medium tyres but Verstappen trumps Russell and gets in front of the Mercedes. Verstappen is gifted a position as Perez is just ahead, which puts Verstappen on Leclerc’s tail.
Lap 41 – Max Verstappen overtakes Charles Leclerc going into turn one. Verstappen on better and warmer tyres makes it reasonably easy. Looks like Ferrari have stuffed Leclerc again.
Lap 42 – Max Verstappen spins!!!!! Towards the end of the lap he just drops it. He falls behind Leclerc and just stays ahead of George Russell into the next turn.
Lap 43 – The end result is Max Verstappen is back on Leclerc’s tail for third, and the Ferrari is still struggling on the wrong tyres. Ahead Sainz and Hamilton are yet to pit for a second time.
Lap 45 – Max Verstappen eases past Charles Leclerc into turn two after Leclerc defended well enough down the pit straight. Ferrari have really stuffed Leclerc again.
ORDER – SAI HAM VER LEC RUS PER RIC STR NOR VET
Lap 48 – Carlos Sainz pits from the lead and he drops to fifth. Hamilton, who took the lead from Sainz pits three laps later and remains behind Sainz.
Lap 49 – Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo collide at turn two. Both continue, the Canadian driver complains. And rightly so according to the stewards who punish the Australian. Well, not as much as this 2022 season is already punishing him.
Lap 54 – George Russell gets past Charles Leclerc for second place. Leclerc pits a lap later, which doubles down on the fact that the choice of hard tyres was stupid. And rain may be coming in two laps. Leclerc comes out behind Hamilton and Perez. Solid work. Clowns.
Lap 57 – Lewis Hamilton sets a fastest lap in fourth. He’s on a slightly different stop given the much later second pitstop. Maybe he can win. Maybe anyone can. Where’s that rain?
ORDER – VER RUS SAI HAM PER LEC NOR ALO OCO BOT
Lap 62 – Hamilton all over the back of Sainz’s Ferrari, a lap later he is ahead. Ferrari still suck. Hamilton is right on Russell’s tail, so expect an intra-team swap soon enough. May as well, as Lewis may have just enough to win this. But Russell is defending well for now.
Lap 65 – Hamilton gets past Russell for second, but the 10 second lead to Verstappen seems too far away for a race win. Although, for the sixteenth time today, there’s apparently rain within the next two laps.
Lap 68 – Just two laps to go and it is the first retirement of the race. Valtteri Bottas is the culprit. This “brings out” the Virtual Safety Car which effectively ends the race.
Last Lap – Not for the first time there are reports of rain, but it doesn’t come and Max Verstappen cruises to the finish after the Virtual Safety Car ends with a lap to go. Good day for Mercedes with second and third. Ferrari blew an opportunity to win, instead the gap in the Championship increases.
FINAL ORDER – VER HAM RUS SAI PER LEC NOR ALO OCO VET
2022 Hungarian Grand Prix Results
RACE RATING
Was it a good race, loads of action, tense, or just a big, fat, snooze-fest.
We rate the big race itself so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 9 / 10
Charles Leclerc blows a big chance to close the gap in the Championship. Ferrari start second and third but somehow stuff up strategy again and allow Max Verstappen to win from tenth on the grid. The big season importance is that Ferrari are no longer able to be trusted with strategy, or anything lucky. With that gap in points, luck is needed for Ferrari, and they can’t make or steal their own luck.
ON TRACK ACTION – 9 / 10
Plenty of action, and most of it up the sharp end of the grid. Battles for all the top positions, and none of it with any trouble. Cars able to follow each other, but overtaking not too easy. Midfield battles ok too, with the occasional contact, What a world of F1 we live in these days.
ENDING 5 / 10
Promised rain never quite came, and the top six sorted themselves out a little earlier.
OVERALL RATING 23 / 30
An action packed race that could have been a full-on classic with a shower of rain that was promised so often but never came. Respect for the top drivers to race without running into each other. No respect for Ferrari.
2022 SEASON RATINGS SO FAR
Want to know what we thought of previous races? Or which ones to to back and watch?
R1 Bahrain Grand Prix 26/30
R2 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix 21/30
R3 Australian Grand Prix 16/30
R4 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix 17/30
R5 Miami Grand Prix 19/30
R6 Spanish Grand Prix 17/30
R7 Monaco Grand Prix 24/30
R8 Azerbaijan Grand Prix 22/30
R9 Canadian Grand Prix 21/30
R10 British Grand Prix 26.5/30
R11 Austrian Grand Prix 24/30
R12 French Grand Prix 17/30
Season Average – 20.9 / 30
2022 Hungarian Grand Prix Results
GREAT & GRAPE OF THE RACE
Here we go through the field and highlight the very best (Great) of the race, and the plodders, the over-ambitious, the out of luck, and simply hopeless (Grape).
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. Five points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 /-2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
It used to be called the good, bad and ugly, but everyone is using that now. And who doesn’t like grapes.
THE GREAT-EST – MAX VERSTAPPEN
What a drive from 10th to the race win. On a day where you wouldn’t blame him and his team for damage limitation after an ordinary qualifying, he drove well and his team had the right strategy.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
LEWIS HAMILTON – Solid second place from seventh on the grid and had some proper pace. With a little bit more time or a lot more rain could have really challenged Max for the win. He’ll take second if you think back a few races ago in Azerbaijan.
GEORGE RUSSELL – Deserves a spot here for that pole position lap alone. Raced well at the front and got the podium he deserved.
LANDO NORRIS – Best of the rest, and so strong throughout the weekend. Last of the unlapped cars.
THE GRAPE-EST – CHARLES LECLERC
Looked the race winner and was stuffed by his team’s terrible tyre and pit strategy. Leclerc ended up sixth, while his Championship rival takes a win from 10th,
DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS
CARLOS SAINZ – Not helped much by his team prioritising a shit strategy for his team mate.
DANIEL RICCIARDO – Finished 15th while his team mate ended up 7th. Penalised for a clash with Lance Stroll. Pulled off a stunning move on two Alpines at once. But went missing in the last part of the race.
YUKI TSUNODA – Spun while placed last just about sums that up.
2022 F1 Season Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the race soon as it is currently being calculated.
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