The “heart-breaking” call that led to Ocon’s Hungarian GP triumph

There were plenty of iconic images created at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix.

The sight of Sebastian Vettel wearing an LGBTQ+-supporting rainbow T-shirt made an impact for the right reasons ahead of the start, soon after which the pile-up crashes triggered by Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll created a scene of ugly chaos (albeit in a trivial sporting context compared to the suffering of still-sadly oppressed minority groups). But perhaps the most bizarre pictures on the day at Budapest concerned Lewis Hamilton lining up solo on the grid to restart a race that was eventually won by the irrepressible Esteban Ocon.

The event ultimately broke down into three main storylines – all of which were split apart from the original narrative by some shocking driving into the first corner.

The Hungaroring had been dampened by rain falling steadily in the 30 minutes before the initial start, with all the field going onto intermediates – intrigue over the Mercedes cars starting on mediums from the front row and the Red Bulls just behind on softs wiped away.

Bottas’s problems began when he “got wheelspin” despite apparently “hitting the target” on his clutch usage for an intermediate-shod start – the Finn suspecting he’d “lost some temperature of the tyres in the formation lap”. Whatever the cause, his bad getaway, as Hamilton led easily away from pole and Max Verstappen followed him through from third, meant Bottas was passed by Sergio Perez and Lando Norris heading into the near-hairpin, downhill Turn 1 right.

Here, on the inside line, Bottas “misjudged the braking point” and clattered into Norris, who was sent smashing into Verstappen, while Bottas – his left-front already broken – slid on and also knocked into Perez. All four cars went head-on into the runoff, as did Pierre Gasly (untouched on the far outside), although only Bottas was out on the spot.

Norris clatters into Verstappen after initial shove from Bottas, who then skittles Perez

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

Seconds after Bottas had caused havoc, Stroll added to it.

“Once the incident at the front of the field happened,” the Canadian explained, “I took the line to the inside to try and avoid making contact, but I locked up under braking.”

Here, Stroll “knew that I wasn’t making the corner” and so he turned right and went onto the grass, sliding over and off Turn 1’s inside kerbs and then smashing into the innocent Charles Leclerc. That contact put the Ferrari into Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren, which was spun around just as it had been looking like leaving Turn 1 trailing only Hamilton. While Ricciardo recovered, Stroll’s left-front was broken, and he was soon out, as was Leclerc with smashed right sidepod.

The debris field at Turn 1 – plus Verstappen’s entire right-side bargeboard array coming off in the pit exit after he’d pitted for new inters and a damage inspection at the end of the neutralised lap one – had to be cleared. Plus, Perez had stopped approaching the Turn 12 right at the start of third sector, his engine having “lost all its water immediately” in the hit from Bottas, per Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, and so the red flags soon flew.

"If we were not able to talk, it probably would have been a different story" Esteban Ocon

Hamilton came to the pitlane followed by Ocon, who had ended up becoming the main beneficiary of the first corner chaos – mainly thanks to Stroll cutting ahead of him on his way to wipe out Leclerc instead of the Alpine.

Sebastian Vettel was third – “lucky" that making a “really bad start” meant he was able to wade through the incidents unscathed and leap back up the order – followed by Carlos Sainz Jr, Yuki Tsunoda and Nicholas Latifi. Verstappen was down in 13th as Red Bull got to work trying to repair as much of his smashed RB16B as it could, while Norris was wheeled back into the McLaren garage and retired during the ensuing 30-minute interlude.

Ocon and Vettel were boosted up the order by the start chaos which caused a red flag

Photo by: Alpine F1 Team

Ocon’s race to victory

When the track was cleared, Hamilton headed out still on inters – as were all his rivals, something that Mercedes’ director of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin, called “very surprising”. His squad had opted to be "cautious" and stayed on the green-walled rubber, rather than risk getting involved in another incident or slipping off if the track wasn’t ready. But it was.

“I thought that within one lap, it couldn’t possibly dry up like it did,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff later reflected on the time Hamilton was reporting each corner’s dry line to race engineer Peter Bonnington. The world champion was also asking why his steering felt like it "wasn’t straight" – a feeling he’d detected when Mercedes “put the wets on” ahead of the initial start. But, assured a pulling sensation to the left was nothing to worry about, Hamilton insisted that discussion did not have an impact on what proved to be one of two pivotal factors that cost him the race.

As Bonnington was reporting on the steering issue and telling Hamilton to prepare for a second standing start, Ocon was raising the prospect of pitting at the end of the tour behind the safety car with Alpine. He knew that unlike on the formation lap, which this wasn’t despite the second standing start call, his engineer could make any strategy decisions.

“If we were not able to talk, it probably would have been a different story,” Ocon later suggested.

Alpine’s decision was made with Hamilton bringing the pack slowly through Turn 12, and two corners later Ocon led every other car back to the pitlane to switch to dry mediums and take the second start at the end of the pitlane.

Bonnington assured Hamilton “we think this is the right one” as he moved to line up on pole once again – the lack of opposition reminiscent of the 2005 US GP (albeit with the promise of a much better event still to come). He weaved after leaving the line having only had the medical car for company, his race already heavily compromised.

“It was more surprising [than everyone staying on inters] to see the entire field peel off behind us,” said Shovlin, with Mercedes adamant its real mistake had not been picking slicks when leaving the pitlane ahead of the second start. “But when you’re first garage, you’ve got the disadvantage that as you come in and do your stop you’ve then got a train of cars following you in who all have pitboxes further down the pitlane.”

Mercedes' caution in leaving Hamilton on inters caused him to rejoin last

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Wolff explained Mercedes “calculated that he would have come out sixth with the train of cars going into the pits”, but that would still have been better than the 14th place Hamilton assumed once he came in at the end of his sole racing lap on inters – actually the race’s fourth tour of the 70 scheduled.

Ocon praised Alpine’s “great pitstop” meaning he’d lined up at the pitlane exit light at the front of the queue as expected, but in yet another shock development he wasn’t second behind Hamilton when the pack was released after the Mercedes had passed the pitlane exit line. Instead, it was Williams driver George Russell.

Williams’ garage placing at the end of the pitlane meant its cars could pull back into the queue immediately, whereas those behind were backed up – which infuriated Sainz, who’d already lost a place to Tsunoda. But Russell took things further.

In the split-second after asking engineer James Urwin if he could pass by the queue by driving up the slow lane, with nothing impeding his progress, and being told “negative”, Russell thought: “Screw it, let's go for it.” So, he crept alongside Ocon and then surged ahead when the Frenchman “was quite slow to react because I never did a start from the pitlane like this”.

Ocon actually thought Russell “was allowed to overtake, so I didn’t say anything to the stewards or the team”, but just as he was “ready to fight”, Williams ordered Russell to give back all the places he’d gained and slot into eighth behind Fernando Alonso (his pre-stoppage position) – pre-empting the stewards’ intervention.

Vettel “pushed really hard on the way in – probably a bit too hard – and locked the rears and triggered the anti-stall” 

“The team came across and said, 'We are going to instruct George to drop back behind Fernando', which is why you saw him pull straight off, slow right down,” explained race director Michael Masi.

With Mercedes’ current and possible future stars out of his way, the Black Arrows’ former junior charge suddenly had a chance to score a major result.

“To box when you are P2 on the road,” Ocon said of the decision that got him into the race lead, “it’s a bit heart-breaking at first. But I’m glad that we did it because we were a long way ahead.”

Vettel kept Ocon under constant pressure in the opening stint

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Of Hamilton, yes – 18.4s in fact. But Vettel was looming, 0.8s behind at the start of lap five. Over the next 20 laps, Ocon’s lead grew to just 1.5s as the Aston Martin swarmed – Vettel giving it everything to “push him into a mistake”.

Just past the one-third distance, Alpine instructed Ocon, who had been working to manage the degradation on the mediums, to “drive flat-out”, per team sporting director Alan Permane. He therefore worked his lead up above two seconds for the first time – even while subsequently having to lift and coast to save fuel – which meant his team could “just react to Sebastian [pitting]” – again according to Permane.

Vettel stopped to go from the mediums to the hards at the end of lap 36, but made a mistake approaching his pitbox that cost him dearly. Vettel “pushed really hard on the way in – probably a bit too hard – and locked the rears and triggered the anti-stall”. His slide took his AMR21 just beyond its marks and so “when the guy goes out with the gun, it bounced off the wheelnut”, according to Aston team principal Otmar Szafnauer.

The delay meant that when Ocon emerged from his own stop to take the hards at the end of the next tour, Vettel, despite pushing “like crazy on the out-lap”, came up short.

From there, Ocon marshalled the gap – his only remaining moment of real danger coming when he lapped Antonio Giovinazzi into Turn 1 on lap 49, as “once I got the dirty air [in traffic] we were a little bit slower overall than Sebastian”. Struggling to clear the Alfa without DRS meant Vettel had a serious look to the inside – Ocon said he was “too close for comfort” – but the Alpine driver held on and then “managed to pull the gap then in the tight section [where] the car felt amazing”.

Ocon held on as the pack, no longer held up by Latifi, came back towards the two long-time leaders – only finally making an error after taking the chequered flag 1.9s in front. This was by not returning to the pits for parc ferme and instead pulling up at the end of the pitlane to run back to the celebrations.

“I was a little bit faster for the majority of the race, but Esteban didn’t do a single mistake and I didn’t really get close enough,” Vettel said, over four hours before he was disqualified – subject to the results of an Aston appeal – for his car only having 0.3 litres of fuel left at the finish, 0.7 litres short of the required amount to provide a sample.

Ocon became first driver to win a race for 'Team Enstone' since Raikkonen's Australian GP victory for Lotus in 2013

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

Hamilton’s race back to the podium

Hamilton’s efforts to get back from last had not started well. He’d quickly caught Giovinazzi once he reappeared on the mediums, but then took more than five laps to get past the Alfa Romeo – later noting “I don’t think the balance was spectacular in the race” thanks to the steering issue.

After that, Hamilton ran in a small train of cars comprised of Mick Schumacher, Verstappen and Gasly – who’d also been held up by Nikita Mazepin’s pitlane crash that followed Kimi Raikkonen being released into the Haas’s path at the second start rush to lose the inters. Once they’d all cleared Schumacher by the end of lap 16, Hamilton soon became the first driver to have a strategic impact on many other cars, as he came in at the end of lap 19 to take the hards.

Verstappen, now running behind Ricciardo, followed the McLaren in at the end of the next lap in their similar bids to cover the Mercedes, but the undercut was too powerful and Hamilton was suddenly clear in 10th. From there he charged, lapping 1.1s quicker than Ocon over the next 15 laps, which included passing Schumacher again, Latifi - who had run third for 18 laps after the restart and allowed Ocon and Vettel to escape up front - and Tsunoda.

"I knew that Esteban and Vettel were fighting and they were like two corners in front of us. With 20 laps to the end and Lewis coming two or three seconds faster, that was enough to probably win the race [for Mercedes]" Fernando Alonso

But when Hamilton reached Sainz’s rear, his charge was halted. The Ferrari driver had contested a call to stop when Tsunoda and Latifi had pitted out of his way on laps 22 and 23 respectively (the AlphaTauri undercutting the Williams at his stage), but did come in as soon as Hamilton cleared Tsunoda.

The Ferrari’s fresh hards meant Hamilton was stymied until Mercedes rolled the dice again and pulled him onto what was really a two-stopper (he visited the pits four times in total) at the end of lap 47, when he went back to the mediums.

Just like in this event two years ago, a grandstand finish was set up, as Hamilton initially took 13.7s out of a 22.7s gap to Ocon in just six laps. Then he reached Alonso.

Alonso's expert defence from Hamilton helped to protect Ocon and Vettel

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Ocon’s illustrious team-mate – who had managed to create a gap that meant he wasn’t held up by a double-stack at Alpine in the second-start pitlane chaos – had cycled through to lead as the last effective one-stopper to come in on lap 39. He rejoined fifth and set about closing in on Sainz, moving up to fourth when Hamilton stopped, and got within DRS range of the Ferrari shortly before the Mercedes joined the party.

“I knew more or less what the situation of the race was – I was looking at the biggest screens,” Alonso said of the moment the race entered its final stages. “I knew that Esteban and Vettel were fighting and they were like two corners in front of us. With 20 laps to the end and Lewis coming two or three seconds faster, that was enough to probably win the race [for Mercedes].”

And so, Alonso knew what he had to do: defy Hamilton. And he pulled off the second key to Ocon’s win with aplomb.

On lap 55, when Alonso locked up lapping Raikkonen at Turn 1, Hamilton attacked around the outside at the long, downhill left of Turn 2. But Alonso ran Hamilton wide and stayed ahead, then obliging his rival to attack to the outside through the rapid left of Turn 4 at the end of the back straight – where Hamilton had to back off. Twice more the same sequence played out over the next six laps, with the pair making light contact approaching Turn 4 in the third such thrilling skirmish.

“I knew that every lap I could hold him behind, that was gold for Esteban's win,” said Alonso.

“He probably is one of the hardest drivers – but fair,” said Hamilton. “I’d say today was a little bit over on the limit. I totally get it [though] and I would do the same for my team.”

On lap 65, Alonso’s stout finally defence crumbled when he locked up at Turn 1 and went wide, Hamilton racing past with DRS – finally nailing his old team-mate and title rival. But Alonso’s task had been achieved.

Hamilton quickly passed Sainz, but ran out of laps to catch the leaders

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Now, Hamilton was still 9.4s behind Ocon – 0.4s further back compared to 11 laps previously – so even though he quickly caught Sainz and passed him in another exhilarating move tight to the pitwall as the Ferrari lapped Ricciardo, there weren’t enough laps to recover the lead his solo second standing start call had cost.

Hamilton’s efforts took their toll, the world champion struggling with fatigue that led to “everything getting a bit blurry on the podium” and him visiting Mercedes’ team doctor before joining Ocon in the press conference (Vettel bowed out early to head for the airport).

Gasly, gifted enough time to take a free pitstop for softs late on by Tsunoda spinning at Turn 2 14 laps after being ordered to let his recovering team-mate pass, also stole Hamilton’s fastest lap bonus point on the final tour.

Verstappen’s race with “half a car”

After the hit from Norris at Turn 1, Verstappen’s afternoon was one of extensive damage –and damage limitation. During the red flag, his Red Bull mechanics attempted to fix the extensively varied broken areas of his car – the floor, his bargeboards, and parts of his engine. There was only so much that could be done.

"It was super difficult to drive with. There was a lot of oversteer and understeer from the downforce loss" Max Verstappen

“The temperatures were off the scale, and they had to straighten pipes and fix the right side as much as possible in very limited time,” Horner said of the repairs, which were completed only to the point that Red Bull got their charge back in contention with what the team boss called “half a car”.

“It was super difficult to drive with,” said Verstappen afterwards. “There was a lot of oversteer and understeer from the downforce loss.”

Verstappen would end the race out of the points lead for the first time since before Monaco thanks to Hamilton’s recovery, but he still delivered two moments of stunning racing.

Verstappen twice had to pass long-running Schumacher with wounded car

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The first came after he’d spent nine laps bottled up behind Schumacher. Then, on the race’s 14th tour, he went off at the Turn 1 exit after trying a move around the outside, then successfully did so on the same line out of Turn 2, where there was a brief clash of Haas-right-front wheel to left Red Bull sidepod.

After that he began a near race-long chase behind Ricciardo, which ended 11 laps from home when he drove clean around the outside of the McLaren at Turn 2 – having been switched to the net two-stopper on lap 40 in a successful bid to create a tyre-life offset.

From there, Verstappen closed in on Russell and Latifi at the finish, ending up 10th and then being boosted to ninth by Vettel’s contended fuel penalty.

“Of course it’s really disappointing to only score [two points] but on the other hand I was incredibly lucky to continue after the crash,” Verstappen concluded as F1 headed off into its mid-season shutdown period.

“So, it was a surprise to score a point at all, which is still important. We have the summer break now, but we keep pushing. We will never give up.”

Verstappen has lost points lead after difficult afternoon

Photo by: Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool