Mercedes surprised their rivals in Hungary by beating almost any other car by a full second in dry conditions.
Lance Stroll’s Racing Point RP20 was the only car to turn in a second of the flying black machines last weekend. His qualifying effort was 0.93 seconds slower than pole winner Lewis Hamilton, a 1.266% deficit around the 73-second lap.
That’s the biggest performance advantage Mercedes has had since the first race of the 2015 season, when no one came within 1.39 seconds of them qualifying as Albert Park.
Will this shape the shape of things to come for the rest of the year? Red Bull’s surprisingly poor rating performance is in part why Mercedes was so far ahead. And keep in mind that last year while Mercedes had a very dominant car in Spain, later in the year they had a seven-race run without the fastest car:
Hamilton continued to move closer to beating Michael Schumacher’s all-time record for the most Formula One wins. He scored his 86th career victory in Hungary last weekend, leaving him five times behind the seven-time world champion.
“It’s weird to me because I remember being on the other side of the television watching Michael win all those races and now I’m on it and I’m getting closer to how many wins he had,” said Hamilton after Sunday’s race.
“I’m like ‘geez, I’ve won a lot, and I still haven’t earned as much as Michael’. It just reminds me of the mastery and excellence he has shown for so long. And I can understand the position he was in, I can understand the pressures in it was. It’s quite remarkable. “
Hamilton equaled another Schumacher record by scoring his eighth victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix. This ties the record for most wins in the same race: Schumacher won the French Grand Prix eight times.
Announcement | Become a follower of RaceFans and
Schumacher still holds the record for most victories in the same country, with 12 victories in Italy. For much of his career, Italy held two races per season, at Monza and Imola. Hamilton has never raced twice in Italy during a grand prix season, but later this year after Mugello’s addition to the reorganized 2020 F1 calendar.
Hamilton also took his 90th pole position on Saturday, already well above Schumacher’s previous record, and his 48th fastest lap. He falls far behind Schumacher on the last count: he needs 29 more to reach this record.
If Max Verstappen had not faced a lap later than Hamilton at the start of the race and had taken the lead in one lap, the Mercedes driver would have led each lap of the race. Therefore, Verstappen narrowly denied Hamilton what would have been his seventh pole grand slam, victory, fastest lap and leading each lap. Jim Clark holds this record with eight.
Hamilton extended his scoring record to 36 runs in a row. It’s been over two years since he couldn’t finish a career in the top 10.
If Hamilton hadn’t made his last pit stop for an extra set of tires to rack up the fastest lap bonus point, the end result would have been an even more depressing read for Mercedes rivals. Only the top five drivers finished on the jump lap, Alexander Albon recovered one lap because Hamilton faced, and Lance Stroll could also have saved himself one lap back.
In qualifying, Williams managed to get both cars into Q2 for the first time since the 2018 Italian Grand Prix. Third place for Stroll was his best result in a qualifying session, although it did not lead him to his highest position in the grid: He qualified fourth at Monza in 2017 but started second due to penalties.
Go ad-free for just £ 1 per month
>> Get more information and register
Have you seen other interesting statistics and data from the Hungarian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
2020 Hungarian Grand Prix
See all the articles of the Hungarian Grand Prix 2020
