THE RACE FOR REDEMPTION BEHIND FLAWLESS HAMILTON

Behind Lewis Hamilton, there was actually a pretty good Hungarian Grand Prix. The trouble for the other 19 drivers in the race was that he simply left them all behind on the way to his 86th Formula 1 career win, from his 90th pole position.

Yet again, Hamilton showed his class in the wet, with a 3.107-second lead on the intermediate rubber at the end of lap one, and from there he was out of reach. As Mercedes’ world champion left his opposition to sort things out between them, attention boiled down to the fight for second place, with Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas each on their own quests to make up for earlier errors.

There’s no doubt that Verstappen’s was the bigger calamity. After rain had fallen in the hours leading up the race, and with the unusually low temperatures at the Hungaroring not helping the track dry ahead of the off, the drivers had to take the start on the inters. And on his way to the grid, Verstappen – already having a hard enough time taming his recalcitrant Red Bull RB16 through practice and qualifying, where he was disappointed to end up a surprise seventh – did the unthinkable. He crashed, by himself, on the way to the grid.

It was clear that he was struggling for grip – team boss Christian Horner later said he “went off three times on that lap to the grid” – and when he arrived at the Turn 12, 90-degree right-hander at the start of the final sector it was too much. Verstappen