Luke’s Weekend Take – Hungarian GP 2023

Looking now into FP1 we start with a shock as we see Sergio Perez dip his tyres into the grass on Turn 5 making him lose control of his Red Bull and crashing into the barriers. This happened in the first 5 mins of FP1 and immediately brought out the Red Flag. With Ricciardo being back in F1 might have put some extra pressure on Perez and given the lack of good results in the past few races he needs to improve as I’m sure there will be conversations happening down at Red Bull to potentially swap the drivers next season if Ricciardo performs well in the Alpha Tauri.

Due to the Red Flag no one had managed to set a time in FP1 and as soon as the session restarts we see some rain come in which also delayed the progress for all the teams as they weren’t setting any times and running any simulations for the weekend and we only see a time being set with 15 mins left in the session as the rain got heavier and no one wanted to risk being out on track potentially crashing out, especially with no threat of rain on Sunday. Towards the closing stages of FP1 we also see Carlos Sainz spin coming out of Turn 3 and gets away easily as he only gently hits the barrier, however he managed to beach his Ferrari as he tried to get going again bringing out the Red Flag again. Marshalls help him get going again as they push him back on track and we get the session restarted with 10 mins to go. At the end of FP1 we see 7 drivers in total not set an actual time and we end up with George Russell being the quickest followed by Oscar Piastri and Lance Stroll.

We head now into FP2, and the track seemed to have dried off from the earlier session and Red Bull managed to get Perez’s car fixed up and ready to run. Due to the lost time in FP1 all teams didn’t waste any time and started running simulations to ensure they all get the right set up for the weekend. FP2 ran quite smooth with no disturbances apart from some rain reports with 10 mins to go but the rain never intensified enough to disturb any progress as all drivers remained out on slicks. At the end of FP2 we see Charles Leclerc with the fastest time followed by Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly.

In FP3 nothing major happened as well however it was worth nothing that Mclaren was looking exceptionally good on pace in FP3 as while all other cars had a run on the softs ahead of qualifying, we see Lando Norris only being 0.271 off the pace on the mediums. One other thing to note was Nico Hulkenberg finishing in 4^th place in FP3 while his teammate Kevin Magnussen only managed 15^th place. Lewis Hamilton tops the timing charts in FP3 ahead of qualifying followed by Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

We now head into qualifying with the experimental format where all teams were forced to use the hards in Q1, this put an additional challenge for the teams as they had to ensure to save enough tyres for qualifying to be able to set a respectable time and to get themselves out of Q1. In Q1 the biggest upset was George Russell being eliminated out of qualifying as he got caught up in traffic in the closing minutes and wasn’t able to set a good time to get out of Q1. And we lost Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda, George Russell, Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant in Q1.

All the talk at the beginning of Q2 was obviously on Ricciardo as to how he managed to out qualify his teammate on the first race back alongside some other drivers such as Albon and Russell. In Q2 we see all drivers go back out and set out their first time early in the session, but this didn’t go so well for the current Championship leader Max Verstappen as his time got deleted for exceeding track limits on turn 5. This meant that Red Bull had to use up another set of mediums and Max went back out early to ensure he has a clear enough track for him to set a good time, Max manages to set a good enough time to finish 3^rd in Q2 and made it out to Q3. In Q2 we lose Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon, Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly.

Q3 gets under way and after the first run in Q3 we see last race podium sitters all in the top 3 spots with Max being first followed by Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris, however eyes again were on the Alfa Romeo as both cars made it into Q3 with their tremendous pace due to the new engines. We also see Sergio Perez back in Q3 for the first time since Miami which is mad when you think about it as he is also driving the fastest car on the grid especially when Max has taken pole in all the races since Perez was last in Q3. On the second and last run however was were chills hit everyone as we see Max not managing to improve on his last time and Sir Lewis Hamilton manages to snatch pole from Max by 0.003 seconds making it his 9^th pole in Hungary and also breaking a record for the most poles for a single driver at one track. Hamilton’s lap was superb and very deserving of the pole.

The grid for tomorrow will be Lewis Hamilton on pole followed by Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Zhou Guanyu, Charles Leclerc, Valtteri Bottas, Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg forming the top 10. This grid gives me hope for an interesting race. I have no doubt that Max will emerge victorious, but I think there will be some interesting battles going on especially with Hamilton and the Mclaren drivers.

Who do you think will come out on top in the Race tomorrow? I am hoping for some good battles on track and a good few overtakes.