Despite Lewis Hamilton’s incredible pace in qualifying, and his subsequent pole position at the beginning of the Hungarian Grand Prix, the Brit failed to take a spot on the podium this week.
Photo credit Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
This was Hamilton’s first pole position in 595 days, with the seven-time World Champion appearing optimistic to take a podium position ahead of the race today.
Regardless of this initial optimism, Hamilton finished in fourth place behind Sergio Pérez, despite his attempts to get past the Mexican driver in the final laps of the race.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas team principal Toto Wolff claimed that the team “had the second quickest car today”, despite the team finishing in fourth and sixth position.
Max Verstappen had a fantastic start, stealing the lead from Hamilton on the beginning lap. This led to Hamilton quickly dropping to fourth place, as both of the McLaren’s sailed past him in turns 1 and 2.
Hamilton noted that “the getaway wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had, but obviously it wasn’t as good as Max’s.
“Definitely not a great start, kind of reminiscent of 2015 when I fell back from first.”
Despite Hamilton stopping on lap 17, in an attempt to undercut Lando Norris, the McLaren team followed suit. They performed a rapid pit stop on Norris’s car, returning him to the race in front of Hamilton.
The seven-time world champion seemed unable to keep up with Norris throughout the race, and fell behind the Red Bull’s, with a colossal gap of 39.134 seconds to Verstappen at the end of the race.
“I just didn’t have the pace to keep up with the guys, the balance of the car was pretty awful on that first stint, a lot of understeer.
“I just couldn’t keep up with them.”
Hamilton made his last pit stop on lap 50, moving back to the medium trye compound, dropping him behind both Pérez and Oscar Piastri. He briskly passed Piastri on lap 56, following this tyre change, but failed to gain a position on the podium, as Pérez fended him off for the final podium spot.
Hamilton voiced that as the race progressed, the car “started to become more drivable, and the last stint was obviously much better.”
“If we had the pace we had at the end, we would have been a little bit better through the day.”
Attempting to maintain a positive outlook on the weekend as a whole, Hamilton noted that he will “take the positives from yesterday”, asserting that it was an “amazing effort from the team to get to where we were.
“To beat everybody in qualifying was really spectacular from us.”
Despite these positive notions, the world champion echoed a familiar sentiment from his season so far, claiming that the team still “have a lot of work to do.”
“We’re a long way away off beating the Red Bull in a race, and obviously now we’re behind the McLarens.”
Mercedes is still holding to second place in the Constructors’ Standings, behind the relentless Red Bull squad. At this stage in the championship, Mercedes holds a 39 point lead in front of Aston Martin.
When questioned about their lower fuel levels at the end of the race and why they suddenly found speed, and if the car performs better under these conditions, Hamilton noted:
“This weekend it was quicker… we generally have a bigger wing than some of the others, like the Red Bull’s for example, but they seemed to have more downforce from their floor.”
With Verstappen’s commanding win this weekend, whilst Mercedes missed the podium spots once again, Hamilton claims he feels “like a broken record.”
“We have a lot of work to do… I just gotta keep telling the guys that we need to go that direction (mimicking the successful downforce of rival cars), I would love to see that either this year or next year.”
