When Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag first last time out at Silverstone, he managed to set yet another all-time record in his extremely decorated F1 career with an unprecedented ninth grand prix victory at the same circuit.
But despite waiting almost three years to record his 104th grand prix victory, he now has the opportunity to equal his own recently-set record at another circuit where he has practically owned the top step of the podium – the Hungaroring.
With nine pole positions, eight wins and 11 podium finishes from his 17 starts in Hungary – including last year’s pole position here in 2023 – there is perhaps no better track for Hamilton to try and build on his Silverstone success and Mercedes’ two-race win streak than the twisty 4.38km course. After all, even the W15’s two tempestuous predecessors fared better at the low-speed circuit than most venues on the calendar.
But if Mercedes and Hamilton were hoping to charge into Budapest with their heads held high and be in the fight for a hat trick of wins, the team may have come away from Friday less energised than they’d have hoped. And not just because of all the extra work they had to do fixing the CrowdStrike problems on all their paddock tech.
At the end of the day, Hamilton was only seventh-fastest, just under a tenth of a second slower than team mate George Russell and half a second adrift of Lando Norris’s best time of the day for McLaren.
“We’ve not really been on form today,” Hamilton admitted after practice. “The car hasn’t felt good, set-up wise, but I think we have an idea why and we’ll just work overnight – but not the best prep so far.”
On his fastest lap in the second session, Hamilton was fairly evenly-matched with both Norris and Max Verstappen over the first half of the lap – thanks in part to the superior top speed he reached at the end of the straight. But once it came to the twisty section of the circuit after the chicane, Hamilton lost time from the sweepers all the way until reaching the chequered flag.
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Hamilton suggested that a setting the team had adjusted on his car ahead of the weekend may not have had the desired effect on lap time, but that it could be easily reverted.
“There’s a particular thing that we changed into this…
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