Bad decisions and a perfect performance: the mayhem that made Ocon's Hungarian GP win

This led to a crazy old order behind Hamilton as they exited the turn. Ocon – who had decided against a move down Leclerc’s inside and moved left, thereby creating the gap that Stroll was trying to fill – lay second. Vettel, who’d qualified 10th, was third. Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari – which had started 15th after spinning out in Q2, caught by one of the powerful wind gusts – was fourth, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda and Nicholas Latifi, who’d qualified 16th and 17th respectively. They’d qualified far enough back that they missed the carnage.

Pierre Gasly, who’d qualified his AlphaTauri a strong fifth, had to go virtually straight-on at the first corner to avoid the crashing Bottas/Perez. He rejoined somewhere near the back and would make a terrific recovery drive to sixth, stopping two laps from the end for new tyres on which he set the race’s fastest lap.

Rain and Bottas had completely randomised the order behind Hamilton. But he was about to be compromised too as the race was red-flagged.

Here Comes the Sun

The rain stopped in the half-hour gap during which the damaged cars were worked upon. Red Bull replaced Verstappen’s floor, repaired the damaged hydraulic pipes but there was no time to replace the entirely missing right-hand barge board.

The race would continue with a standing start which would essentially be the beginning of lap three. But which tyres to fit? Tyre choice in such circumstances is totally free, yet remarkably everyone remained on intermediates as they lined up at the end of the pitlane in race order, 15 cars now rather than 20.

Every single one of them realised the error of their choice as the safety car led them through the formation lap. There was some ambiguity about whether teams could instruct their drivers to pit. On a conventional formation lap to the grid, they are not permitted to as it falls foul of the ‘driver coaching’ regulation and the driver must make the call. But this was a continuation of the race rather than a regular formation lap. Everyone erred on the side of caution, though, and treated it as a formation lap in this regard.

Discussions were obviously had beforehand between teams and drivers about what to do should they wish to immediately pit for slicks. But Mercedes was adamant that it didn’t want Hamilton to pit on the formation lap. So, even though he was radioing that every corner was dry, he didn’t. Every other car did – and so we had the bizarre spectacle of a one-car grid taking the start, the rest lined up at the end of the pitlane, now on slicks.

Garage Positioning

It was a disastrous choice from Mercedes, but there was a logic to it. The biggest error was not choosing slicks in the first place, but that applied to everyone. Merc was so insistent on not pitting on that lap because stopping at the first garage in the pitlane, Hamilton would have to been obliged to be held for an age for all the traffic that would be following and there would be a multiple loss of position. As it was, as he pitted at the end of the lap, the back of the field was only 13sec behind and with a pit stop taking 20sec, he was a solid last by a long way. His limping title rival Verstappen was only a couple of places further up, unable for a long time to put a pass on Mick Schumacher’s Haas. Ocon led the race from a closely following Vettel.

Williams, as the last garage in the pitlane, benefitted the most from the traffic situation, allowing Latifi to vault from fifth to third. Tsunoda also leapfrogged past Sainz to run fourth.

Having Latifi hold up the pack in third allowed Ocon and Vettel to clear off into the distance, building a big cushion and taking Sainz in a faster Ferrari off their backs. Behind the Ferrari were Fernando Alonso’s Alpine and George Russell’s Williams, who had been blocked from entering the fast lane of the pitlane after his stop by the queue of cars. From his end garage, he drove straight past them, to the front of the line, and emerged second behind Hamilton before allowing through the cars he leapfrogged.

Hamilton strategy

From the back, Mercedes intended to two-stop Hamilton as the harder tyre usage would maximise the performance difference between him and the other cars, allowing him to overtake around a track where you generally need to be around 2sec faster than the car ahead to make a pass.

It was only as he got off the first set of tyres on lap 19 that he began to make progress, helped by Red Bull forlornly trying to respond to that stop with Verstappen in a crippled car unable to make a fast enough in-lap to avoid being passed by the Merc. Max would remain down near the tail end for the whole race, driving hard just to make the top 10. By contrast, Hamilton’s race came alive as he chased down the pack.

Tsunoda had undercut his way past Latifi at the first stops. Hamilton on his second set of slicks passed them in quick succession, dramatically going around the outside of the AlphaTauri at the fast Turn Four. Sainz pitted immediately after that, so as to not be undercut by the Mercedes, but Alonso stayed out.

Alonso’s two key roles

Alpine was happy keeping Alonso out because he was in Vettel’s pit stop window, preventing the Aston from making an undercut attempt on Ocon’s lead. If Seb pitted he’d come out directly behind the other Alpine. Staying out meant that Alonso would inevitably be overcut by Hamilton, but for the greater good – and Alpine already suspected Hamilton was going to be stopping again anyway.

It was correct in this assumption. Aston eventually brought Vettel in on the 39th lap, as his tyres were beginning to fade. There was a 1sec delay fitting the left-rear and Vettel rejoined flat-out, trying to make the undercut work, as Ocon was brought in next lap. The Alpine exited just in front of Vettel who had made a terrifically fast out-lap and that wheel delay was all that had prevented him taking the position. Ocon was composed throughout and dealt with all the high-pressure moments perfectly. “He just didn’t make any mistakes,” said a resigned Vettel afterwards.

Alonso rejoined behind Sainz/Hamilton and was catching them on his fresher tyres, setting fastest laps. But then, with 23 laps to go, Hamilton pitted again, rejoining a few seconds behind Alonso but lapping up to 2sec faster than anyone on his fresh medium compound tyres, with everyone around him on old hards.

Alonso knew now what his challenge was. He could see on the big screen team-mate Ocon leading Vettel and had been informed Hamilton was catching him at 2sec per lap. When the Merc inevitably came upon him, he must delay it for as long as possible. He proceeded to do that to perfection for 11 laps, forcing Hamilton to go the long way round at Turns Two-Three and up to the fast blind-apex Turn Four. Times without number their tyres were almost touching and on one occasion, on the 160mph run-up to T4, sidewall rubber was exchanged.

It was a brilliant demonstration of racecraft from Alonso who is clearly back at something close to his best, even at 40 years old. Eventually Hamilton worked out an offset line through the final corner which allowed him to follow more closely through there, which in combination with DRS, finally got him up to fourth. Using the line he’d figured out in his Alonso dice, Hamilton made much quicker work of Sainz to go third. But there were now only four laps left and he was still 9sec off the lead. He took the flag right upon Vettel’s rear wing, as Ocon took a sweet victory at the same track as his team-mate had taken his maiden win – 18 years ago.