The Hungarian Grand Prix posed a strategic conundrum for teams, and the result was a wide variety of strategies was used throughout the field. Did Ferrari pick the wrong one for Charles Leclerc?
All 20 runners were classified at the finish (Valtteri Bottas completed more than 90% of the race distance before a fuel system problem halted him) and among them 11 different permutations of tyre compounds were used.
The most popular option was an opening stint on softs followed by two more on mediums. Even so, just four finishers used this strategy, including both Red Bull drivers. Max Verstappen used it to win from 10th on the grid, while team mate Sergio Perez climbed six spots to finish fifth.
It worked for Sebastian Vettel too, who gained eight places to grab the final point. Only George Russell, who had arguably qualified much higher than he should have done by taking pole position, lost out on this strategy, falling to third. Even so, team mate Lewis Hamilton, who took second, reckoned he would have been better off following his team mate’s lead on tactics.
Hamilton was among the five other drivers who used different combinations of two stints on mediums plus one on softs. Significantly, among those who used the same as him was Carlos Sainz Jnr, who fell from second to fourth during the race. As Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto pointed out, that indicates the team’s car was not the force it usually is this weekend.
Even so, Ferrari clearly made matters more difficult for Leclerc by putting him on the hard tyre. Leclerc was hardly any quicker on the new set of hard tyres the team swapped his worn mediums for at the end of lap 39.
With the DRS zones at the Hungaroring unchanged, and 2022’s new generation of cars able to race more closely, passing was more straightforward at this track than usual. Max Verstappen passed Leclerc not once, but twice, having lost four seconds with a spun on lap 41.
There was another telling pointer to Ferrari’s lack of pace. After Leclerc gave up on his hards and pitted for a set of soft tyres, his pace was no better than Hamilton’s, who fitted a set of softs three laps earlier. They both set their quickest laps on the 57th tour and Hamilton’s was two-tenths quicker.
By then Verstappen was long gone, aided not only by excellent Red Bull strategy, but near-faultless pit work. Each of the four complete pit stops the team performed during the race was quicker than every…
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