Martin Brandl summarized the results of the Hungarian Grand Prix

The connoisseur and commentator of the British TV channel Sky Sports F1 Martin Brundle summed up the past Hungarian Grand Prix in his column, which ended with Max Verstappen’s seventh victory in a row.

Max Verstappen and Red Bull continue to dominate this season. The situation reminds me of Nigel Mansell with Williams in 1992 and Michael Schumacher with Ferrari in 2002. At least this year the champion will not be decided in July or August as it was then, but we must remember that in those seasons there were far fewer races and the points system was different.

Just as we got the feeling that the competition was slowly catching up with the Milton Keynes Masters of Speed, Max won the race by 33 seconds. He described driving the car with the words “pure fun”. During the race we even heard Max race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase contacting him on the radio to see how he was doing. This is Verstappen’s 24th win since the start of last season and the 44th of his career.

Toto Wolff described Max’s performance as making everyone else look like a Formula 2 driver to him.

Hamilton returned to pole but lost on Sunday

Mercedes had an interesting and mostly positive weekend. Lewis Hamilton impressively took pole and put in a neat lap under pressure, while Verstappen failed to get the most out of his car, which appeared to be race-ready. Lewis wasn’t fastest in any of the sectors and he didn’t even get into the top three in the first, but he excelled with his skill.

Lewis started so-so, allowing Max to take the inside radius in turn one. After a small battle for leadership, Max led the rest of the parade. Lewis lost to both McLaren drivers captained by the increasingly impressive Oscar Piastri. More on McLaren soon.

George Russell bounced back into the second Mercedes car after starting from 18th. In the race, Mercedes had several periods, but with empty tanks closer to the finish, they both just flew on. Hamilton almost robbed Sergio Perez of third place, but at the end of the race he was still upset because he failed to get to the podium after starting from pole. Russell, on the other hand, took sixth place of two Ferraris.

Pérez, who finished a disappointing ninth on the grid, had an impressive run to the podium with equal parts grit and aggressiveness. It was just the kind of performance he needed to boost his own confidence and reputation. His overtaking maneuver was hard, but not desperate, but steely. And Sergio showed good speed.

He has shown that he can control his emotions, being in the shadow of Verstappen’s speed and results, although few people are capable of this. Let’s not forget Peres’ brilliant victories in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.

Norris and Piastri confirm McLaren’s excellent form

McLaren’s excellent form after the team updated the car was confirmed on three completely different circuits, promising good results for the rest of the season. Lando drove with controlled aggression all weekend – it was nice to see him on the edge of the track. He seized his opportunity and took his first two consecutive podium finishes in Formula 1. Characteristically, he was disappointed not to be able to win pole position and was the only driver in qualifying with a new set of Medium tyres.

Debutant Oscar Piastri looked like he was born to race on the front rows of Formula 1. He slipped past Hamilton and Norris perfectly in the first corner, as they went into a wider stretch, and at one point it even looked like he could even lead the race. McLaren was surprised by this turn of events, so they called Norris to the pit stop first so that Lando would be ahead of his partner due to the “cutting”.

He looked faster after Norris, and that became more noticeable when, after a struggle with Perez in the second corner, Piastri damaged the underside of the car. The stewards considered the incident and, in my opinion, rightly decided not to take any further action. I suspect that Oscar’s manager, the always pragmatic and serious Mark Webber, will advise him to choose opponents more carefully and not to fight those with whom it is impossible.

McLaren has a great and promising team if they can keep both drivers in the team.

Ferrari and Aston Martin are disappointing

The Ferrari team had a disappointing weekend, finishing seventh and eighth, one minute behind the leader. Charles Leclerc receives a 5-second penalty for exceeding the speed limit in the pit lane by just 0.7 km/h. In addition, he had a botched pit stop, which further reduced the chances. Charles’ disappointment was clearly audible in the radio exchange with the team.

Carlos Sainz started on soft tyres, which he made excellent use of to gain five positions back, but this decision ultimately jeopardized his race. Ferrari had the fourth fastest car in the race and in qualifying they also lost to their Alfa Romeo and Haas customers. I can imagine how tense the team had a debrief.

It is difficult to understand how and why Aston Martin lost to arch-rival Red Bull to finish ninth and tenth, 75 seconds behind the winner at the finish. Their car was fifth fastest. The rivals were clearly able to catch up with them thanks to new products, but I have a feeling something is going wrong.

Rumor has it that the stronger tire construction introduced at Silverstone hurt them, but Aston Martin’s downward trend has been visible before. Let’s hope they solve the problems because we need them with the leadership contenders.

The Alfa Romeo drivers recorded impressive fifth and seventh qualifying times, but Guanyu Zhou’s poor start endangered his team-mate Valtteri Bottas, after which Zhou hit Daniel Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri, making it difficult for him to reclaim his first race.

But it was nothing compared to the consequences for Alpine – both riders retired in this collision. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly missed the finish line for the second race in a row.

It’s not easy to judge Daniel Ricciardo’s race, but he immediately passed Yuki Tsunoda.

Difficult to evaluate the new tape distribution format

The new tire allocation format had two fewer sets of tires per rider, while the remaining 11 contained only four sets of soft tires instead of the usual eight.

It’s hard to judge how the innovation worked for a number of reasons. Friday turned out to be rainy, so that the fear that the teams will at least work less on dry roads remained unfounded. Lap times were impressive, but qualifying results were lopsided, partly because track conditions steadily improved during the hour-long session.

All this led to an unusual line-up of riders at the start, but I’m not sure it’s necessary on a track that’s a bit like Monaco. In addition, we now have three qualifying formats in addition to normal and pre-sprint, and two types of races: sprint and traditional race. All tire rules are different, which can lead to general confusion.

I’m open to change, but I don’t think the environmental benefit of reducing the number of tire sets is strong enough to warrant a change, as the qualifying format has worked well since 2010. At least you can easily reduce the number of tire sets for the weekend to eleven, and also see how many unused sets of intermediate and rain tires are just thrown away.

Other sports like football and tennis don’t change the basics for decades, and that doesn’t diminish audience engagement. There is a good expression: “Don’t fix what ain’t broke.” This year, the new tire distribution format will be tested again.

The next step is the spectacular Spa. Based on the preliminary weather forecast, the coming weekend will be quite wet.