The Red Bull & Mercedes strategy masterclass: Hungarian GP data analysis

A pitwall masterclass by Red Bull and Mercedes saw both F1 teams lock out the podium places in the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix. We delve into the data to show how their strategies won the day

Red Bull team cheer Max Verstappen as he wins the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix

Team effort: confident strategy helped win the day for Verstappen in Hungary

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At last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, Red Bull and Mercedes showed once again that even bad days can be good thanks largely to strong, assertive strategy.

By examining the race data, we can see how both teams adapted as the race unfolded, finding the optimum approach for their cars amid a mixed-up grid and the potential for rain.

It was contrasted once more by Ferrari, which allowed Charles Leclerc to be bounced into an unfavourable strategy and lose touch with the leader, leaving Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to claim the podium places.

With the spotlight shining brightly on tactical decisions, let’s start our deep-dive by taking a look at the summary of tyre strategies.

 

Chart 1: Tyre Strategy Summary

Chart to show F1 tyre strategy at the 2022 Hungarian GP

Starting a race on harder compound tyres has been commonplace when a driver is further down the order than expected. However in Hungary, Red Bull opted for the opposite approach by starting on the soft tyre.

At Mercedes, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton went for a split strategy, as shown in Chart 1 above, which includes the four strategies recommended by Pirelli at the top.

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Mercedes had deduced that the hard compound would not be a good race tyre based on Friday running, while Red Bull had arrived at a similar conclusion – reinforced by its drivers’ comments on the laps to the grid ahead of the race. The colder temperatures on Sunday played an important role in these developments. These factors served as a deterrent from taking the conventional approach.

Red Bull opted to loosely follow Pirelli’s first recommended strategy of soft-medium-medium, while Mercedes went somewhere in the middle. Given Russell was the pole-sitter, it made sense to front-load the aggression by starting on the soft while Hamilton took the alternate strategy to make the most of a light car and better rubber towards the end of the race by starting on the medium and finishing on the soft.

But a lot can happen between the point A and B of starting and finishing a race. This is where the agility of the strategy team becomes the crucial factor.

 

Chart 2: Race story – cumulative delta plot

cumulative delta graph for 2022 Hungarian GP

Verstappen, Hamilton and Perez all had a strong start to the race, while Russell was initially able to hold both Ferraris at bay.

But the decline in his pace is evident in the graph above, which shows drivers’ average lap time over the course of the race as it progressed, compared with a 1min 24sec baseline.

Russell’s soft tyres were fading and, while Ferrari’s comments to box Sainz may have been a catalyst, lap 16 was the right time for Mercedes to bring its leading driver into the pits.

It was a similar story for Verstappen, who had failed to make the same inroads on Hamilton as he did prior to suffering a brief sensor issue that hindered his progress. By this time the soft tyres had seen their best days and so pitting also made sense for the championship leader.

Not long after this, Carlos Sainz was in the pits himself since his pace was starting to fade despite starting on the more durable medium tyre. It was a different story for Charles Leclerc, who was able to extend the stint while maintaining competitive pace.

 

Chart 3: Pitstop gain and loss

Chart to show pit stop gain and loss at the 2022 Hungarian GP

Both Russell and Sainz had slow first stops, so there was nothing to be gained on that front. However the delay in pitting Sainz meant that Russell was able to generate enough of an advantage to actually extend his lead over his rival by virtue of the undercut, as seen above.

Turning our attention back to Chart 2 and we can see that Hamilton comes into the pits a little later on and slots into some clean air between the two Red Bull drivers. This allows him to get his head down and do the hard yards to reap the rewards later in the race.

Leclerc pits later on still, but is able to undercut Sainz – partially due to his team-mate’s slower stop but also due to the Monégasque’s better pace. But Leclerc is not able to get the jump on Russell, who matches his pace, just as he did in the first stint for Sainz, who struggled to get the longevity out of the medium tyre.

 

Chart 4: Trend race pace compared

Graph to show trend race pace compared at the 2022 Hungarian GP

With all the major players and their first pitstops accounted for, let’s take a look at how the race pace played out – especially for the all-important second stint.

The drivers were closer to their expected running positions at this time, and so their pace was more representative of where they should be.

Leclerc was fast, but was compromised by the pace of Russell. The Brit did well to hold Leclerc back a for as long as he did.

Even when Leclerc was eventually unleashed, Russell was able to keep Sainz at bay, despite the pace differential of the two cars on the same tyre – remembering that the Mercedes’ earlier defence of Sainz was helped by the grip from the soft tyre.

Hamilton and Verstappen both chewed away at the gaps ahead thanks to their strong and consistent pace – particularly for the former who was, at times, the fastest man on track amongst the top three teams.

Hamilton bedded down for the long stint, extending it considerably while Red Bull looked to throw down the strategic gauntlet.

 

Chart 5: pit stop gain and loss II

Second chart to show pitstop gain and loss at the 2022 Hungarian GP

Red Bull had been watching the gap to Russell and saw an opportunity to get position over him via an undercut. Furthermore, with Verstappen having run a soft-medium strategy, and Ferrari being on the medium-medium, Red Bull looked to put the Scuderia in a difficult place by going for an undercut at an uncomfortable time (i.e. too early for the soft tyre). But it is likely that this bait was secondary against the primary objective of clearing Russell.

Chart 5 above shows the efficacy of Verstappen’s undercut on Russell, comfortably overturning the gap.

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Ferrari took that bait and switched Leclerc to the hard tyre – which performed abysmally as seen by his reduced third-stint pace in Chart 4. This paved the way for an easy drive to victory for Verstappen.

Returning to Chart 2 shows just how crushing Verstappen’s pace was early in the third stint, despite the small spin.

We can also see that Hamilton was making great inroads on Sainz who was struggling for race pace – potentially impacted by a plastic bag caught on the car — as he tried to stretch the stint to make the final soft tyre running more feasible.

Hamilton’s extension of the second stint set him up with a powerful offset that would see him extract the full benefit of the alternate strategy. Not only did he have better pace, but his degradation profile was much better than Sainz’s as seen in Chart 4. This helped him comfortably close the gap and take the position.

Hamilton’s overtake of Russell was also simple and a result of the the different nature of the race for both drivers, with the latter fighting both Ferraris and Hamilton going for the under-the-radar threat over the long run. Mercedes was able to bag a 2-3 finish which was likely its optimal outcome.

Perez had an anonymous race, but was on the verge of threatening Sainz for P4 at the end of the race thanks to finding much better pace in the final stint compared to the rest of the race. However, the VSC put a halt to his progress.

 

Chart 6: Best performance for each tyre

Graph to show best potential tyre life of each compound at the 2022 Hungarian GP

If Red Bull and Mercedes’ decision to avoid the hard tyre needed any vindication, all you need to do is look at Chart 6 above, which showcases the best pace on track for each available tyre.

The performance gap between hard tyre and the others was staggering to say the least, and the profile of the observations also points to an unfavourable degradation trend, as the tyre suffered from just as much variance as the others.

Once again, Red Bull shows that even on an off-day, it’s a force to be reckoned with.


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