2020 Hungarian Grand Prix – what the drivers said

Lewis Hamilton moved to the top of the drivers’ championship after taking his second win of the 2020 Formula 1 season.

The reigning world champion secured a comfortable victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix, despite the race starting on a damp but drying track.

Max Verstappen split the Mercedes cars, finishing second ahead of Valtteri Bottas, while Haas claimed their first points finish of the season, despite being penalised after the race for using driver aids on the warm up lap.

Here’s how the drivers reacted to today’s proceedings:

Lewis Hamilton – 1st (Mercedes):

“What an incredible race. Honestly, that was one of my favourites that I’ve raced, even though I was on my own for the majority, it’s a very different kind of challenge and I was pushing hard out there – particularly for the fastest lap at the end. I want to say a huge congratulations to everyone back home at the factory in Brackley and at HPP in Brixworth, they’ve done such a fantastic job developing and improving for this year and this team just continues to amaze me. I love working with them and I’m grateful to be able to perform for them on weekends like this. We had great pace today, brilliant pit stops, a fantastic strategy and then, as I was managing those Mediums for a long, long time, at the end it was the perfect time to get on fresh tyres and take that extra point for fastest lap. Everything has just been on point throughout the weekend, so we need to try and keep it up. I can’t wait for Silverstone now, although I’ll miss the energy the fans bring, so I hope I can perform for them there as I know they’ll be watching from home.”

 

Max Verstappen – 2nd (Red Bull):

“This podium is definitely dedicated to my mechanics. I thought the race was over before it had even started. I braked, locked a wheel, came off the brakes and tried to brake again but went straight on into the wall on the out lap. I couldn’t believe it but I managed to reverse out of the wall and get to the grid. As a Team we never give up and the mechanics did an incredible job to fix the car so quickly, I don’t think anyone could actually believe they managed it but they all stayed very calm. The track was still pretty greasy but I had a good start. You cannot plan going into Turn 1 but I saw there was a traffic jam on the inside so I thought I would go around the outside where I knew there was grip in the wet and it worked. The race could have been very different if I was stuck in seventh place for a few laps that’s for sure. We then made all the right strategy calls and I just had to manage my tyres, be as consistent as possible and manage the backmarkers. To be second here between the two dominant Mercedes cars is an unbelievable result and we did not expect it yesterday after qualifying and such a difficult weekend. We want to try to close the gap to Mercedes, they are really dominant at the moment so it will be very hard to beat them but we won’t stop trying.”

 

Valtteri Bottas – 3rd (Mercedes):

“That was a tough race. Obviously starting second on the grid, you aim to win the race, but I had a bad start and lost a few positions. I reacted to a light on my dash that went off, instead of the start lights, which then meant the car went into anti-stall and I had to do the start again. I lost some ground there and that made the race very difficult for me, as I was fighting right to the very end. It was pretty close with Max and I think the gamble to pit late on was definitely worth taking, as it gave me the difference in tyre life. But it didn’t quite pay off today. Still, I scored a good haul of points and there’s plenty to learn from this weekend, heading to Silverstone.”

 

Toto Wolff – Team Principal (Mercedes):

“A 1-3 result is really satisfying, especially on a track that hasn’t always been our favourite in the past. A great result for the team! Lewis had a really good start in those tricky conditions and from there, he was in control of the race, managing his pace and dealing with the curveballs the weather threw at us. For Valtteri, obviously he had a difficult start and that dropped him into the midfield, but he fought back well to finish P3. We leave the Hungaroring with three wins out of three races and very happy. The car seems to be in a good place but to maintain it, we know we need to keep working hard and adding performance. Now we’re looking ahead to Silverstone in two weeks and we’re looking forward to be back there.”

 

Lance Stroll – 4th (Racing Point):

“I’m really happy with P4: it’s a good result and I have to thank the team for such a great job today and all weekend. It was fun to fight Max [Verstappen] at the start of the race and run in P2 in the changeable conditions. We actually ended up in quite a lonely race to P4, but the main thing is that we were able to score a good haul of points for the team, and so did Checo. It was such a complex race and I’m looking forward to reviewing it and learning what we can for the races to come. We’ve had three races now and looked strong in all of them. I think the podium was close today because we were in a big battle with Bottas and maybe we could have done things differently, but you can always say that after the race. That’s racing and we’ve got to be happy with fourth.”

Yes guys!!! P4!!! 🤜🤛 pic.twitter.com/Vf7finPAXs

— Lance Stroll (@lance_stroll) July 19, 2020

 

Christian Horner – Team Principal (Red Bull):

“The mechanics did an amazing job today and Max owes this result to them. To get his car repaired in 20 minutes on the grid is incredible and you could see the sweat dripping off them. The guys have been doing an amazing job, especially with the amount of specification changes we’ve had this weekend, as well as breaking curfew on Friday night. We were obviously on the ropes in qualifying yesterday so to bounce back and split the Mercedes with a P2 here is great. Max drove the wheels off the car and Alex drove a great race too. Considering where he started from on the grid, he put the lap times in and all credit to him as the passing moves he did today made for a great recovery drive. The car is in better shape in race trim and strategically we are sharp but we have updates that aren’t behaving as expected, compared with pre-season testing, so we need to go through all the data we’ve collected and understand it before Silverstone.”

 

Alexander Albon – 5th (Red Bull):

“It was a good race and I had a lot of fun with my elbows out. If you had told me we’d be P5 after yesterday I would have jumped at it. Today was never going to be easy starting from P13 but we had a good start and we made our way through the field. It’s not easy to overtake at this circuit so we had to do some big moves to get past people. Every move you do is always on the limit here but it worked out for us and I enjoy the battles as it’s nice to put on a show. When we fight we tend to come out on top and the car is good on the brakes so it’s nice to make these moves. We lost quite a lot of time in traffic today behind the Ferraris otherwise I think we would have been closer but the car was really good and when we were in clean air we were fast and very competitive. I’m happy with the result and it’s good points for the Team after such a tricky day yesterday so I think we have to be thankful. Today is a bit of a surprise as to why our race pace is so much better than our quali pace, so we need to understand that, but it’s positive and means some things on the car are working.”

 

Otmar Szafnauer – CEO & Team Principal (Racing Point):

“The rain showers ahead of the start certainly changed the complexion of the race and made things more challenging for everyone. Lance had a strong start moving up to second, but Sergio suffered from wheelspin and dropped down to seventh. The track was ready for dry tyres almost immediately and I think we pitted at the opportune time – certainly in sync with the cars we were racing. As the race settled down, Lance was in contention for a podium, but it proved difficult to hold off the recovering Mercedes of Bottas. The eventual fourth place for Lance is an excellent result following a mature drive to complete a very strong weekend. Checo’s seventh-place finish was a legacy of the poor start and he spent most of the afternoon in the wheel tracks of Vettel and Albon. It proved difficult to follow cars closely, let alone overtake – even with a pace advantage. The 18 points scored consolidate our fourth place in the championship. This result is an important reward for the entire team’s efforts – both here in Budapest and back home in the UK.”

 

Sebastian Vettel – 6th (Ferrari):

“This was a better performance compared to my first race in Austria. However, in the early stages we might have done a bit better if I’d taken more of a gamble and come in for dry tyres on lap 3 instead of 4. As it was, I lost a lot of time, having to let other cars come down pit lane before I could be released. But in the end, fifth or sixth was the most we could have done. Towards the end, I was struggling with the tyres and even if I would have loved to have put up more of a fight, there wasn’t much I could do to keep Alex (Albon) behind me. We are not where we want to be just now, but at least we did everything we could today.”

 

Sergio Perez – 7th (Racing Point):

“It was a shame about my start. I just picked up a lot of wheelspin in the first phase and that cost us a lot of positions. It’s always tricky to recover at the Hungaroring, but we tried our best and I had some good battles. I had a few adventures out there too and I ran wide – in the dry – and was lucky not to touch the wall. When I did get some clean air, I could show the pace of the car, but the time I lost on lap one was costly. The main thing is that we’ve scored more points for the team and are now just behind third place in the Constructors’ Championship.”

 

Daniel Ricciardo – 8th (Renault):

“It was quite a busy race and, overall, I’m happy with how it went. I gave everything I could and I felt we got the most from it today. Our start was good and everyone around us went for slicks quite early on. We showed good pace on the Medium and almost caught the top six at the end. Eighth was all we could achieve in the end, though. We’ve had eighth in every race so far. It’s not bad, but I do feel we have the speed for more from the first three races. We’re not far from top six finishes, it’s coming, and we know bigger points are around the corner.”

 

Carlos Sainz – 9th (McLaren):

“Overall a tough day today. I was very happy with the start which left us in a strong position before the first pit-stop, however we lost several positions during the stop due to the traffic release, which I think cost us a lot in the overall result. I managed to fight back into the points, so I’m happy about that, but definitely not the best Sunday because I feel we deserved a bit more. I’m looking forward to improving the car balance and coming back stronger at Silverstone. Thank you to the whole team for the effort during this first triple-header. Let’s keep pushing!”

 

Kevin Magnussen – 10th (Haas):

“I’m so happy. The team made an amazing call before the beginning of the race – on the formation lap, to call for the slicks. It was really strong for them to give me that trust, to put me out on dry tires and in conditions that weren’t easy. It was pretty risky, but it worked out. The pace was there and having started from the pit lane, after a few laps I was in P3. I knew that wouldn’t be our final placing, but it was amazing to be up there in the race. I just tried to hang on to it as much as I could. I kept working with the team regarding where realistically we were going to be. In the end it was P9 – I held on to it and we had opened the gap to a Ferrari and then kept the McLaren away as well. It shows what a good car we had in the race. It’s proved that the team has done an amazing job even though we’ve been struggling a little bit in qualifying.”

YEAH! First points of the season! 💪🏼 Suuuch a great effort from the whole team making that tyre choice on the formation lap. Was tough in the end, but we managed to keep 9th and get two little but very valuable points. Awesome 👊🏼😊 pic.twitter.com/AHNLFEXYNY

— Kevin Magnussen (@KevinMagnussen) July 19, 2020

*Magnussen’s comments came prior to his 10-second time penalty, dropping him from 9th to 10th in the final classification.

 

Charles Leclerc – 11th (Ferrari):

“It was a very complicated race. I’m not sure what happened, because we didn’t make changes to the car, but it was extremely hard to drive, as the balance was so much worse than Friday and Saturday, when it was actually better than expected. It just didn’t feel like the same car. We need to look further into that to try and understand, as I was struggling a lot. We stopped for Softs a bit earlier than others and maybe it was a bit too optimistic. But it was a good call and I managed a few quick laps, but there was only one dry line so I could not overtake and, with hindsight the Soft was not the best choice. After that we were just slow. There’s lot of work ahead of us.”

 

Daniil Kvyat – 12th (Alpha Tauri):

“I was happy with the race pace today, I overtook some cars already on lap one and I made a very good call to go on slicks at the right time. After the pit stops I ended up behind cars I had already overtaken on the first laps. I need to review the race to understand it better, because I felt there was a chance of finishing in the points today and to end up only P12 is not really satisfying. I’m still working on understanding the car with my engineers and we learnt a lot during the last three races. Every lap is important and we’ll try different solutions to suit the car a little bit more to my driving style in Silverstone.”

 

Guenther Steiner – Team Principal (Haas):

“It was a great result for the team today finishing ninth and bringing some points home. It’s fantastic, as at the moment we’re not in a position to do this under normal circumstances. The call at the beginning of the race was the decision which made this happen, the guys then just kept it up. Kevin (Magnussen) did a fantastic job in the race, Romain (Grosjean) just had a few issues with the tires. Thanks to the whole team for putting in the hard work and keeping on pushing – they never gave up; we never give up.”

 

Lando Norris – 13th (McLaren):

“Tough result. I wouldn’t say tough race. The hardest part was my start – I had a good launch but then in the second phase I just had so much wheelspin and it all went wrong. That was a mistake I made. I haven’t done that many starts in the wet and I’ve never had a great one. I’ve been preparing for it, but I just couldn’t quite get it right again.  The rest of the race was just trying to recover from that. It’s such a difficult track to overtake on, I couldn’t really do too much else. I think the pace was good, and the car was pretty good to drive. I just had a difficult start on probably one of the most important tracks to get away quickly, so on to the next one. It’s my first proper big mistake of the season. I need to work on it and come back stronger. A big thanks goes to everyone in the team, who’ve worked hard to put both Carlos and I in the best possible positions over these opening three races.  I’m looking forward to putting this race behind me at my home track over the next two grands prix.”

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." – 3 long weeks for my team. Thought they could use a couple more hands. 🧡 pic.twitter.com/4LIizGuDh8

— Lando Norris (@LandoNorris) July 19, 2020

 

Jody Egginton – Technical Director (Alpha Tauri):

“Not a great result today. We had to retire Pierre’s car early on due to a gearbox issue and we were not able to move Dany forwards into the points, both of which are disappointing. The inter tyre was the obvious choice for the start of the race but the soft tyre we elected to fit at the first stop suffered more degradation than we expected, so we were forced to bring Dany’s second stop forward, fitting the hard and trying to go longer. With the forecast rain not materialising we unfortunately had no opportunity to get back into the fight for points today, finishing 12th. Overall, although the car has shown some reasonable pace at various points this weekend, we have not got it all together here in Hungary and this is something we will be working hard to resolve ahead of the next race.”

 

Esteban Ocon – 14th (Renault):

“It has been a tough weekend from the beginning. We’re not happy with it, of course, and it’s not a great result. We are all disappointed and we can only come back stronger from here. We have to learn from it, move on and come back as a team. There was a lot happening in the race, but we didn’t make any progress in any of the conditions. We have to review it and work hard together to avoid this type of result. The first two races were decent, but there was not enough improvements for this one.”

 

Kimi Raikkonen – 15th (Alfa Romeo):

“It wasn’t a very busy race for me. Unfortunately, starting where we did meant we had a very difficult job ahead of us: we did what we could but it wasn’t enough for points. Our pace wasn’t too bad, I made up a few places at the start but the penalty put me back at the bottom. The grid was a bit slippery, I went a bit too long into the box and I didn’t have the time to reverse; we could have been a few more places up so it’s a bit of a shame. We have a lot of work to do to improve our qualifying, but we can be positive about our performance on Sundays.”

 

Romain Grosjean – 16th (Haas):

“It was a good move from the team. I had radioed and said it was too dry for the inters, so we took the gamble. The first few laps were a bit hairy but after that things worked really well. The pace was good. I started to have graining on the front left tire, we hadn’t protected it enough. Anyway, it was going okay, then sadly – and I need to review it, Albon had quite a late move on me at turn one, he hit my front wing and damaged it. I had much less performance in the car after that. We tried but things went out of sync after that, we just couldn’t stay in the points.”

 

Pierre Gasly – DNF (Alpha Tauri):

“It was a very difficult weekend for us. For some reason we struggled the whole time, with a few issues here and there. Today we had a drivetrain issue and since the beginning of the race I had problems with gear shifts which we tried to fix on track but we couldn’t, so we just had to retire the car. It’s a big shame, but we were just unlucky this weekend. Now we have a few days to prepare for Silverstone and I hope to have a better weekend there.”

 

Antonio Giovinazzi – 17th (Alfa Romeo):

“It was always going to be difficult to make up ground after yesterday’s qualifying, but at least we can be satisfied with the pace we had towards the end of the race. My start was ok but at my first stop we switched to soft tyres that turned out to be far from the best compound today. That cost me a lot of time and by the  time we switched to hards, which were a lot better, it was too late to recover many positions. The one-week break before Silverstone will be very important for us to understand a little more about what happened in the last few weeks. We must work really hard to improve our car and be in better shape for the next triple header.”

Oggi siamo questi, dobbiamo lavorare con tutte le nostre forze per tornare a emozionarci.
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I don’t believe in miracles, I believe in hard work. This is what I’ve always done and forever I’ll do.#F1 #HungarianGP🇭🇺 #AG99💙 #AlfaRomeoRacing pic.twitter.com/kCacKRQRZv

— Antonio Giovinazzi (@Anto_Giovinazzi) July 19, 2020

 

George Russell – 18th (Williams):

“Firstly, we made a bad start in the wet and it was very tricky. I think everyone on the inside struggled for whatever reason. From then on in, our race pace was really poor, we just need to understand what is going on. Last year it was the opposite, our race pace was better than the qualifying pace. Now we are pretty fast on the Saturday and struggle a lot on the Sunday. However, if we look at everything and see the steps we have made, especially on the Saturdays, we have got to be relatively pleased. There are plenty of positives, we just need to rectify the negatives and make our pace of the car a bit better across the ball.”

 

Nicholas Latifi – 19th (Williams):

“We had a good start and first lap, and then it all came undone with the pitstop, unfortunately that can happen in a busy pitlane. I got the puncture and then unfortunately sustained quite a lot of damage bringing the car back to the pits. We had a big chunk of the floor missing, so just keeping the car on the track the whole race was quite difficult. Today just wasn’t meant to be, it was a bit unfortunate, but still there are positives to take from yesterday. We just need to reset going into Silverstone.”

Today just wasn’t to be. Got an amazing start and first few laps but it all came undone after getting a puncture after the pit stop. Sustained a lot of floor damage bringing the car back to the pits and from then the race was over. Full focus on Silverstone now! #NL6 #F1 pic.twitter.com/BrCxagTbVt

— Nicholas Latifi (@NicholasLatifi) July 19, 2020