Oscar Piastri makes his F1 debut despite McLaren’s confusion and Max Verstappen causes trouble by crashing into Lewis Hamilton

Oscar Piastri already knows what it’s like to win a Formula 1 raceThe Australian driver won in Hungary thanks to a good start in which he took the lead, and surviving the strategic chaos from McLaren that saw Lando Norris overtake him in the pits and then have to be begged over the radio to give up his position.

The negative protagonist of the race has been Max Verstappen. Not only because of the accident he caused with Lewis Hamiltonbut also for the spectacle he has given on the radio complaining about Red Bull’s strategies, which have not been brilliant, on the other hand. McLaren is already lurking in the constructors’ category.

McLaren, just 51 points behind Red Bull in the world championship for manufacturers

On the circuit where Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Heikki Kovalainen and Esteban Ocon achieved Oscar Piastri also achieved his first victory in Formula 1The Australian driver took advantage of a good start in which he passed Norris to win for the first time, although not without suspense.

And it is that McLaren clumsily undercut Piastri with Norriswho was second, and then began to plead with the Briton to let Piastri pass so that the sophomore could win his first Formula 1 race. A decision by McLaren that reveals that they do not see Norris fighting for the drivers’ championship.

So what Verstappen keeps getting into trouble. In Hungary there was another good deal of action from a driver who, without the best car, seems a bit unhinged. At the start he clearly overtook Norris by going off track at the first corner, so he had to give up position to avoid a penalty that was more than obvious. That’s when his complaints on the radio began.

Red Bull’s strategy was terribleallowing Verstappen to be undercut twice, first by Hamilton and then by Charles Leclerc. Unhinged, Verstappen ended up running over Hamilton in a pointless overtaking attempt, from which he survived by pure chance, to finish fifth.

The Ferraris had a chance of finishing on the podium, but at no point did they seem to have any real chances. Leclerc overtook Carlos Sainz at the start and thanks to that he was able to always ride ahead of him, taking advantage of Verstappen’s final error to finish fourth, while Sainz remained sixth.

Verstappen gets into a mess and ends up FLYING after colliding with Hamilton

WHAT A BRAKING OVER! #HungriaDAZNF1 pic.twitter.com/ZSdv80fkgW

— DAZN Spain (@DAZN_ES) July 21, 2024

Good comeback for Sergio Pérez, who started with a hard tyre and was able to move from fifteenth to seventh position, but it is still a very insufficient result given the situation Red Bull is in. With McLaren now just 51 points behind in the world championship of brands. Remember that 44 points are given per race.

The race pace of the Aston Martins has been much worse than their qualifying performance. In fact, Fernando Alonso misses out on points after letting Lance Stroll pass in the final laps to attack a surprising Yuki Tsunoda, who is the only driver to have made the one-stop strategy work and steal the wallet from Aston Martin.

The fastest lap goes to a George Russell who also seemed to insist on going for one stop and in the end finished eighth, even behind Perez. Another debacle for Alpine. The only retirement was again Pierre Gasly, while Ocon was also far from the points. The improvement of previous races was a mirage.

Formula 1 GP Hungary 2024 race results

Formula 1 general classification

1st. Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull-HOL), 265 points

2nd. Lando NORRIS (McLaren-GBR), 189 points

3rd. Charles LECLERC (Ferrari-MON), 162 points

4º. Carlos SAINZ (Ferrari-ESP), 154 points

5th. Oscar PIASTRI (McLaren-AUS), 149 points