Ferrari Sinks, Ricciardo Returns, Record for Verstappen - Hungarian GP 2023 Lap by lap

Ferrari Sinks, Ricciardo Returns, Winning Record for Verstappen - Hungarian GP 2023 Lap by lap

The 2023 F1 Hungarian GP is a reminder that not all drivers have the talent and performance of Max Verstappen. Finishing with a win, Max managed to continue his streak of winning 12 times in a row in the Formula 1 world championship. The following is a summary of the Hungarian Grand Prix race.

On the other side of the circuit, Ferrari is seen again giving disappointment to its fans by only finishing in 7th position for Charles Leclerc and 8th position for Carlos Sainz. After making a mistake in strategy, his driver, Charles Leclerc, received a 5-second penalty for violating the pitlane speed limit (speeding in the pitlane).

One more thing that has caught the attention of the media and fans, of course, is the return of Daniel Ricciardo to become a Formula 1 racer with Red Bull's second team, Alpha Tauri. Replacing Nyck De Vries, who was terminated after the British GP, Daniel Ricciardo gave a very promising performance. If these results continue to improve, there is a possibility that Daniel will return to racing for the Red Bull Racing main team.

Hungarian GP 2023 Lap by lap

In this race, Pirelli brought the softest set of tires namely C3 (Hard), C4 (Medium), and C5 (Soft). That way it is predicted that Soft tires will not be the top choice for racing because they are too soft and will not last long.

Sergio Perez and George Russel started on Hard tires, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll and Yuki Tsunoda on Soft tires. The rest of the riders are on Medium tires, including the riders at the front.

Starting Grids P1 - P20: Hamilton (HAM), Verstappen (VER), Norris (NOR), Piastri (PIA), Zhou (ZHO), Leclerc (LEC), Bottas (BOT), Alonso (ALO), Perez (PER), Hulkenberg (HUL), Sainz (SAI), Ocon (OCO), Ricciardo (RIC), Stroll (STR), Gasly (GAS), Albon (ALB), Tsunoda (TSU), Russell (RUS), Magnus cents (MAG), Sargeant (SAR).

Lap 1. Lights out! Verstappen maintained his inside position from Hamilton and managed to steal position 1 from Hamilton at the first corner. Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris who were behind Verstappen managed to follow Verstappen's 'trail' and also stole 2nd position from Hamilton so that Hamilton dropped to 4th position.

Still, on the opening lap, Guanyu Zhou, who was having trouble starting, collided with Daniel Ricciardo at turn 1 which ended up crashing into Gasly and Ocon.

Lap 2. Pierre Gasly was forced to enter the pits and retire because the damage to his car was too severe.

Ferrari did not use an ideal strategy

Lap 3. Ferrari was in a difficult position because the two drivers Leclerc and Sainz were in very close positions but with different types of tires, Sainz used SOFT and Leclerc used MEDIUM.

Ideally, in this position, Ferrari should immediately switch positions (swap) between Sainz and Leclerc because both of them use different strategies. With Soft tires, Sainz can be faster but stuck behind Leclerc with Medium tires.

On this lap, Esteban Ocon also had to retire for the same reason as Gasly, the damage to the car was too severe.

Lap 6 - 8. Perez started the hunt for his position starting with Fernando Alonso, starting to get closer on lap 6. Perez was finally able to take 7th position from Alonso on lap 8.

Alexander Albon was the first to execute the strategy

Lap 9. Albon became the first driver to change tires from Medium to Hard.

Albon pit Medium to Hard, enter pit P15, exit pit P18

Lap 10. Stroll, Tsunoda, and Bottas responded to Albon's strategy by joining the pits and changing tires. Unfortunately, Tsunoda got a slow pitstop so that the position was away from Bottas and Stroll

Stroll pit Medium to Hard, enter pit P10, exit pit P15
Tsunoda pit Soft to Hard, enter pit P11, exit pit P18 (slow pit stop)
Bottas pit Medium to Hard, enter pit P12, exit pit P 16

Lap 11. Guanyu Zhou also changed tires from Medium to Hard, unfortunately Zhou got a slow pit stop with 9.7 seconds.

Zhou pits Medium to Hard, enters P12, exits P18 (Slow pitstop)

Lap 13. Oscar Piastri who was in P2 was asked to use all his abilities (maximum pace) so that his race target was achieved.

"We're looking for maximum pace to target lap" -McLaren
"Copy" -Piastry

Lap 14. Logan Sargeant entered the pits to change tires but unfortunately, Sargeant got a slow pitstop.

Sargeant pit Medium to Hard, enter pit P12, exit pit P18

Sainz chose to avoid Red Bull's attacks by entering the PIT

Lap 15. Perez began to approach Sainz and Sainz provided information that he would enter the pits if Perez could no longer be restrained.

"If I see Checo is going to pass me, I'll box. But not yet." -Sainz
"Good Call" -Ferrari

Lap 16. Sain finally gave up on Perez and entered the pits to change tires

Sainz pits Soft to Hard, enters pit P6, exits pit P11

Laps 17-21. The other racers started changing tires and it seemed Hard was the favourite. Hamilton and Hulkenberg pitted on lap 17, followed by other drivers on the following laps.

Hamilton pits Medium to Hard, in P4, out P8
Hulkenberg pits Medium to Hard, in P8, out P15

Lap 18

Norris pit Medium to Hard, enter P3, exit P5 (Piastry undercut)
Leclerc pits Medium to Hard, enters P4, exits Q11

Lap 19.

Piastry pit Medium to Hard, enter P2, exit P5 (undercut Norris)

Lap 24.

Verstappen pit Medium to Hard, enter P1, exit P1

Hamilton found the car very slow

Lap 25. Hamilton discusses the condition of his car, and feels the car is very slow.

"Where Am I losing all the time? It's just the car is slow" -Hamilton
"A lot of it is straight line. Then Turns 11 and 14" -Mercedes
"Are you turning the engine down?" -Hamilton
"Negative, we are doing things to improve the temperature situation" -Mercedes

Perez pits Hard to Medium, enters P2, exits Q7

Laps 27-28. With the new Medium tires, Sergio Perez continued his hunt for positions from 7th position slowly moving up to 5th after overtaking Sainz and Russell.

Lap 29. Alonso changed positions with Stroll (swap) from P9 to P8

Russel pit Hard to Medium, enter P6, exit P14

Lap 30.

Ricciardo pits Hard to Medium, from P18 to P18

Lap 32.

Albon pit Hard to Hard, enter P11, exit P17

Lap 33. Verstappen started to pick up speed to be 1 second faster than Norris in P2 in 1 lap.

Lap 36. After leaving the pits in 14th position, Russell began to improve his position with new tires and managed to climb to 9th position. Meanwhile, Hamilton was asked to do a lift and coast (not driving the car too fast).

Lap 40. Peres began to approach Hamilton with a distance of less than 1 second.

Hulkenberg pits Hard to Hard, in P12, out P16
Zhou pits Hard to Hard, enters P13, exits P18

Leclerc was annoyed with Ferrari's strategic choice

Lap 41. Leclerc expressed his frustration on the radio that the strategy taken by Ferrari seemed to be working against him.

"Strategy like this, it doesn't make sense" -Leclerc
"Copy understood, we are discussing it and will do it at the end" -Ferrari
"What do you mean at the end?" -Leclerc
"We are on it, we are on it, okay." -Ferrari

Perez recorded the fastest pitstop 1.9 seconds!

Lap 42. Perez started to battle and try to overtake Hamilton

Lap 43 Hamilton reported that he was starting to lose the rear-end

Piastry pit Hard to Medium, enter P3, exit P6
Perez pits Medium to Medium, in P5, out P7 (Fastest Pitstop 1.9 seconds)

lap 44.

Leclerc pit Hard to Hard, Enter P5, Exit P8 (speeding penalty in the pitlane)
Alonso pits Hard to Hard, Enters P8, exits P9

Lap 45.

Norris pits Hard to Medium, enters P2, exits P3
Sainz pits Hard to Hard, enters P4, exits P8

Lap 47. Hamilton was asked to increase his speed, but he couldn't, it was already the maximum. Perez managed to overtake Piastri for 4th place.

Ferrari got even worse after Leclerc got a penalty

Lap 48. Leclerc gets a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane

Lap 50. After Hamilton pitted on this lap and finished 5th, Perez moved up to 3rd and Piastri to 4th.

Hamilton pits Hard to Medium, enters P2, exits P5

Lap 52.

Verstappen pit Hard to Medium, enter P1, exit P1

Lap 54. Max got the fastest lap 1.20.504

Lap 55. Max complained that there was a lot of marble from the tires at turn 1 and it was hard to get off

Lap 56. Hamilton overtakes Piastry for 4th

Lap 61. Red Bull checks Verstappen for fear of trouble

"Everything Ok? Just Checking in" -Red Bull Engineer
"Yeah. All Goo" -Verstappen

Russell wanted to change to new tires but was rejected by Mercedes

Lap 64. Russell suggested changing the tires again (box) but Mercedes refused because it was too risky

"I'd seriously like to consider boxing. It's dropping big time" -Russel
"we're guaranteed to lose track position if we do that" -Mercedes Engineer

Lap 65. Russel managed to overtake Sainz for 7th position

Lap 68. Logan Sargeant spins at turn 6/7

Lap 69. Sargeant entered the pits and retire / DNF

Verstappen and Ricciardo's winning record stands with Medium tire

Lap 70. Verstappen finished by making history with a record of 12 consecutive wins in Formula 1. And the following is the composition of the drivers after finishing from P1 to P20. VER, NOR, PER, HAM, PIA, RUS, LEC, SAI, ALO, STR, ALB, BOT, RIC, HUL, TSU, ZHO, MAG, SAR (DNF), OCO (DNF), GAS (DNF).

Apart from Verstappen's record, there is another thing that caught my attention, Daniel Ricciardo was able to survive on medium tires for 40 laps (pit lap 30) until the end of the race. With this strategy, Ricciardo was able to recover from last position (P18) to 13th and beat his teammate Yuki Tsunoda who finished 16th with a normal strategy.

Blog authors

Rindi Putra

Graphic Designer & Technology Junkie Graduated with 'International Trade Management' Major | 2 Years of Professional career on International Shipping Company & 3 Years career on Local Fashion Brand Company | 10 Years (and still counting) as Digital content creator. Feel free to connect with me on Social Media Twitter/Instagram: @rindiputra

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