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Where common sense faltered to F1's letter of the law

OPINION: The controversial strategy call to pit both Haas cars on the Hungarian Grand Prix formation lap evoked memories of a famous piece of F1 folklore, but the penalty it later drew is a warning that such magic moments could be wiped out in future

Alex Kalinauckas Jul 22, 2020, 3:28 PM

Formula 1 fans remember the name Markus Winkelhock. And with good reason.

At the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, the German driver made his only F1 start in a race that featured catastrophic rain - as evidenced by the cars flying off the road in the early stages. But he also made history by leading the race for his Spyker squad, and did so because of a pitstop call to change tyres on the formation lap.

Exactly 13 years ago, Winkelhock was swapping slick rubber for wets. Last weekend at the Hungaroring, the two Haas drivers - Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean - took slicks after initially lining up on extreme wet tyres and intermediates respectively.

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Author Alex Kalinauckas

Alex Kalinauckas is Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, covering every Formula 1 race since the start of 2020. After completing a master's degree in journalism at Goldsmiths College University of London in 2014, he worked for a range of motorsport and technology publications while covering national racing as an Autosport freelancer.

A lifelong motorsport fan - no one in his family can explain quite how or why such a development first occurred - Alex joined the Autosport staff in April 2017 as the magazine’s Assistant Editor covering Formula 2 and GP3, before being made Formula E correspondent and Autosport.com’s Plus Editor in March 2018. He lives in north-east London and is constantly frustrated by the Central Line.