Formula 1 seems to have one manic race per season and in the 2021 season, the Hungarian Grand Prix delivered and then some. Esteban Ocon’s maiden Formula 1 victory came in bizarre circumstances after just one car took the restart from the grid and the rest filtered into the pits for slicks.
While the Ferrari pit wall often gets criticism for its high profile mistakes, this time it was the driver who took full responsibility around the Hungaroring. After Lewis Hamilton pulled off a powerful undercut on Verstappen and Ricciardo, Ferrari looked set to mirror that Mercedes strategy of a two-stop and bring the Spaniard Carlos Sainz in on lap 22.
At that point the Spanish driver overruled the team from within the car, claiming that he had a lot of pace still left on his medium tyres. He then rapidly closed in on the cars ahead and it seemed like he was being proven correct to stay out. Towards the end of the race though, and after acknowledging Lewis Hamilton was a threat on the two-stop, he was being caught hand over fist on old tyres and ultimately lost second position to Hamilton, but finished on the podium as a result of Sebastian Vettel’s disqualification after the race.
Had Ferrari brought its driver in earlier and performed a two-stop, in theory Carlos Sainz may well have had a crack at fighting Esteban Ocon for victory, such was his pace versus the duelling duo at the front in the final laps. But taking into consideration the layout of the Hungaroring circuit, Carlos Sainz would have definitely had a lot more difficulties in overtaking his direct opponents than Hamilton, who could capitalize on the outstanding speed of his Mercedes.
On the other hand, Ferrari’s race pace on hards was not that great, but the Maranello team showed a much better pace on mediums, meaning that a final stint on the yellow fresh compound could have been a faster strategy in terms of actual lap times, but Carlos would have had the difficult task of passing several cars on a track where overtaking is extremely difficult unless you are at least 1.5 seconds faster than the car ahead.
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