Another record tumbled to the march of Max Verstappen and Red Bull at the Hungarian Grand Prix, one of Formula One’s oldest landmarks falling to one of the sport’s most inexorable machines. For the team a celebratory affair but one which at the Hungaroring was, while far from a toil for Red Bull, something of an endurance event for the neutral.
Verstappen’s win in Budapest was as dominant a display as he has delivered all season. Under the blazing sunshine he emerged after 70 laps with barely a hair out of place, no sweat of a shire horse, rather the faint glow of a lunchtime constitutional. The victory was Red Bull’s 12th successive win since they took the flag at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the end of 2022, surpassing the 35-year-old record held by McLaren of 11 in a row from 1988.
On setting the record, the team are not fundamentally better now than they were at the first round of the season and would not be considered any worse had that run been interrupted by being beaten but it is indicative of how well they are delivering operationally and the sheer scale of the advantage they now hold.
In Hungary Red Bull were a juggernaut, to the extent that the race was a tepid affair at best and ominous for the rest of the season. Verstappen took the flag from McLaren’s Lando Norris with a 33.7-second lead. The Dutchman’s teammate, Sergio Pérez, was third, having come back from ninth on the grid.
Once the 25-year-old led, having skinned Lewis Hamilton – who started on pole but finished fourth – up the inside when the lights went out, Verstappen was untouchable. Optimism that Hamilton might have made a fight of it was made to look entirely forlorn when the pace of the Red Bull became apparent. The world champion took off up the road with such alacrity that no driver was in a position to resist.
With clean air he opened a gap he held through both sets of pit stops and which for all that it was enormous by the end, he was almost certainly managing without pushing hard for the final quarter.
Hamilton could not come back and the McLarens, including Norris’s teammate, Oscar Piastri, who was fifth, were in an altogether different class to Verstappen. Had the race gone on much longer Norris too would have fallen to Pérez.
This season has belonged to Verstappen. His seventh consecutive win has moved him into record territory as well, tying him with Alberto Ascari, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, behind only Sebastian Vettel’s record of nine in a row the German recorded in 2013.
Verstappen is smashing the competition and aptly inherited a broken trophy to take away from the meeting. During a podium ceremony that was more vivacious and lively than the race itself, Norris performed his usual trick of banging the base of his champagne bottle on the floor to encourage a spot more fizzy spray. The impact toppled Verstappen’s trophy, a €40,000 (£34,600) handmade porcelain creation that took six months to make, from its step, leaving it cleft in two. The Dutchman took it well, laughing off the accident with the ease of a man who already has an absolute truckload of them to enjoy.
Indeed he can only be admired for the execution of each of his nine wins this year, delivered with precision and almost flawless performances. Yet in Hungary it was stale fare indeed. While qualifying was a thrilling scrap where Verstappen struggled with the car and Hamilton delivered a stunning drive to pip him to pole, in race pace the upgrades Red Bull had brought proved immense. Their single-lap toil dismissed with nary a backwards glance as the Dutchman disappeared into the middle distance in a car on rails.
Crushing and relentless then, it is a performance that can be admired but with a procession in his wake was hard to enjoy on the endless succession of corners that dominate in Hungary. Moreover with only 11 meetings of a 22-race season concluded it is hard to escape the likelihood that an awful lot of similar performances lie ahead.
Red Bull could still complete a season sweep of victories while Verstappen, who now enjoys a 110-point lead over Pérez, is on course to close out the title leaving a swathe of dead rubbers. He needs a 180-point lead to claim it in Japan with six races remaining and only 146 in Qatar to do so with five races to go, Verstappen is marching to an inevitable conclusion.
Daniel Ricciardo performed well on his first race back in F1 since the end of last season, when he was let go by McLaren and became the Red Bull reserve driver. Drafted into the AlphaTauri team the Australian delivered a strong race despite being in an incident on the opening lap. He finished 13th and beat his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda.
George Russell was in sixth for Mercedes, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were in seventh and eighth for Ferrari, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll in ninth and tenth for Aston Martin.
