Palmer: Mercedes close to first win of the season

Former Formula 1 driver Jolyon Palmer summarized the results of the Hungarian Grand Prix in a traditional column, criticized Ferrari and expressed confidence that Mercedes would take the first win of the season in the coming races.

Jolene Palmer: “Mercedes is slowly but surely getting closer to its first win in 2022. George Russell not only took his first pole position, but also led confidently in the first half of the Hungarian Grand Prix, withstanding the pressure of Charles’ faster Ferrari Leclerc, then withdrew and fell behind his teammate Lewis Hamilton looking stronger over the course of the race and repeating his best result of the season by finishing second.

We are already seeing a trend at Mercedes: Hamilton looks better in the race, but has a harder time due to lower starting positions. In fairness it should be noted that Lewis had no luck in qualifying in Hungary – in his only attempt on new tires in the final, DRS didn’t open up on his car, so he stopped attacking and was content with only seventh place, while Russell earned pole win.

However, had Hamilton not stopped attacking, even with the wing down, DRS could have taken fifth place for both Alpine drivers. Given his brilliant start, with a higher position, he would certainly have overtaken Lando Norris in the first corner and immediately started fighting with the leaders. In reality, he was stuck behind Norris, leading to the backlog of rivals. This forced Hamilton and Mercedes to recoup.

However, Mercedes’ pace in the race again proved encouraging. Russell was able to stop Carlos Sainz not only in the first stint, but throughout the race. Hamilton turned out to be fastest in the second stint, when everyone was on Medium tyres. This was partly due to the empty job in front of him.

Theoretically, it was a race Mercedes didn’t expect anything special from – after free practice it looked like they had moved on to minimizing losses. It is not always possible to say how many teams are hiding speed in Friday practice, but Russell called Friday in Hungary one of the toughest of the season. Perhaps, given the bumpy and slow track. Given the rainy third practice, it is surprising that the team managed to turn things around and get the car within working range in qualifying.

Behind thirteen stages, and Mercedes’ trajectory is one of the most obvious in the peloton – the team is approaching its first win of the season, which I believe they will win in one of the next races.

Another factor giving Mercedes an edge is Ferrari’s tendency not to maximize its potential due to poor strategic decisions. The gap between Leclerc and the Mercedes duo is narrowing in the championship. The battle for second place in the Constructors’ Championship is also intensifying, thanks to Mercedes’ bulletproof reliability and superior strategy. After Hungary, the two teams are only 30 points apart.

Again, Ferrari can blame their strategy for not getting better results than fourth and sixth in Budapest. It is almost inexplicable why Leclerc finished behind both Red Bull Racing drivers who started tenth and eleventh.

It was clear that anyone who doesn’t have a one-stop strategy should avoid hard tires. But even for one stop, this composition was not the optimal choice. You could see the logic in Ferrari’s actions – they called Leclerc into the pits at that point, as they wanted to protect the lead from “cutting” Verstappen. And to meet the requirements of the regulations, they had to set Soft or Hard. The one-stop strategy at the time meant they had to go hard, but it turned out to be a disastrous mistake.

If Charles had lost position on the track and had opted for Sainz or Hamilton’s strategy of switching to Soft in the latter part of the race, he would probably have won or at least battled for the win. But it was another race where first place eluded the Monaco driver. I’m sure during the summer vacation he will wonder why this happened.

When strategic choices are easy, Ferrari does well, but in a fast race like Hungary they get into trouble and lose points to Red Bull and Mercedes. All this meant that at the start of the summer break, Verstappen and Red Bull were way ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes quickly behind them – a feat few believed in after such a start to the season.