Make it seven in a row for Max Verstappen. The two-time reigning world champion scored his seventh consecutive victory of the season Sunday at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Verstappen, who has earned nine wins total this season, extended his lead in the championship over Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez to a commanding 110 points.
Perez crossed the line in third, with McLaren’s Lando Norris in a Red Bull sandwich finishing second.
Here’s what you need to know from the Hungarian GP:
RED BULL’S REIGN ENTERING UNCHARTED TERRITORY
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton edged Verstappen at the buzzer Saturday during qualifying but as it turned out, second was the best on the starting grid. That gave Verstappen the inside line heading into the first corner, pushing Hamilton wide, and he never looked back.
Just when you thought the British Grand Prix two weeks ago offered a glimmer of hope that someone, anyone, was close to narrowing the gap, Verstappen widened it even further Sunday by crossing the finish line with an insurmountable 33.731-second lead over Norris. Although Verstappen had more than enough time to make a late pit stop for soft tires to take a run at the fastest lap bonus point, he didn’t need to as he already had that secure in his back pocket.
Red Bull’s dominating season isn’t new, but it’s now heading into uncharted territory as they broke McLaren’s 35-year-old record for most consecutive Grand Prix victories. It was the 12th straight win for Red Bull dating back to last year’s season finale in Abu Dhabi.
It’s remarkable that McLaren’s record of 11 straight wins from 1988 with the powerhouse pair of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost has only now fallen having held up through other dynasty eras such as Ferrari with Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, Red Bull with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber and Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg/Valtteri Bottas.
McLaren can still hold a share of the single-season consecutive wins record, however, their claim might only be for another week with the Belgian Grand Prix happening next Sunday.
PEREZ DELIVERS UNDER PRESSURE
When AlphaTauri replaced rookie Nyck de Vries with Daniel Ricciardo after the British Grand Prix, you could sense the heat was on Perez to smarten up on the main team with a potential successor waiting in the wings.
Perez sits comfortably in second place in the drivers’ championship but had been in a qualifying slump failing to reach Q3 (and thus a top 10 spot on the starting grid) in five consecutive races heading into Hungary.
Crashing mere minutes into the first practice on Friday wasn’t an ideal start, but Perez snapped out of his qualifying funk Saturday to make it into Q3.
Perez turned his P9 starting spot into a podium position. As poorly as Perez has performed in qualifying, he’s still bringing home the points on Sundays when it matters.
MCLAREN LOVIN’ IT
A smashing performance for Norris, and we mean that quite literally.
Norris and Oscar Piastri turned in another stellar performance for the resurgent McLaren team. It’s the first time Norris has had back-to-back podiums in his career following his identical second-place finish at his home British Grand Prix. Meanwhile, the rookie Piastri strung together his first back-to-back points finishes and with both in the top five no less.
Again, it’s worth remembering this is a team that didn’t score any points in either of the first two races of the season and also walked away empty-handed in Miami, Monaco and Canada. What a difference a month (and a lot of upgrades) can make as this is venturing on the Ship of Theseus paradox.
As Verstappen passed pole-sitter Hamilton at Turn 1, the two came close to making contact and provided Piastri enough space to slip by into second place. Norris also swooped by Hamilton shortly thereafter on the opening lap and suddenly McLaren were looking at the prospect of a potential double podium finish.
It was not to be this week, but Piastri has made great strides and is running away with rookie of the year honours. (Mind you, Logan Sargeant of Williams still has yet to score a point while the aforementioned de Vries has already lost his ride.)
SUMMER OF GEORGE
Hamilton’s lead didn’t even last to the first corner as he battled for the lead with Verstappen for the first time since the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (oh no, we’re kicking that hornet’s nest again. Let’s just redact that and move on to George Russell).
Hamilton might be disappointed finishing fourth after starting on pole position but what a recovery effort it was for his Mercedes teammate. Russell got stuck behind slow traffic during the first session of qualifying Saturday and ran out of time before being able to put in a decent final lap that resulted in early elimination and 18th place on the starting grid.
Russell picked away at the field with ease and made it into the top 10. He appeared concerned about his tires late and asked about pitting, but his team told him to stay out as they’d likely fall out of the points. It’s a good thing Russell stayed out as he breezed past Carlos Sainz into seventh and ended up finishing sixth after Charles Leclerc received a five-second penalty for speeding through the pits. If there was one more lap, Russell probably would have beaten Leclerc outright on the track.
It wasn’t the best result this year for Russell, that belongs to a third-place finish in Spain, but it was one of his better performances, surging 12 places from his starting position.
WELCOME BACK, RICCIARDO
Ricciardo finished where he began in 13th during his return to the grid. The 34-year-old Australian driver was competing in his first Grand Prix since last year’s season finale in Abu Dhabi when he finished ninth in his farewell with McLaren.
It almost looked like Ricciardo wouldn’t even make it through the first corner on the opening lap as he was bumped by Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu and caused a chain reaction that took about both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon of Alpine.
That shuffled Ricciardo to the back of the pack, but the “Honey Badger” managed to recover and return to his starting position.
Although Ricciardo finished out of the points that’s not surprising considering AlphaTauri’s dreadful season and it’s best to keep expectations low for the time being.
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