Lewis Hamilton was left to rue a discouraging race day at the Hungarian Grand Prix that saw him settle for P5, with numerous setbacks meaning he couldn’t convert Ferrari’s impressive pace into a better result.
The Briton looked as though he would be able to fight for at least a podium after qualifying P2, just 0.012s adrift of Lando Norris’ pole position time, but he received a three-place grid penalty for impeding Oscar Piastri in the final stage of Qualifying.
As a result, he prepared for “damage limitation” in Sunday’s race and started on soft tyres, which proved to be the best compound for Ferrari as they later struggled to extract performance on their hard sets.
Hamilton went on to lose out in a thrilling battle with Max Verstappen before seeming to move back into podium contention following a pit stop under the Virtual Safety Car. However, he had no choice but to allow Kimi Antonelli to pass for P3 in order to avoid being penalised for overtaking under the VSC conditions.
His efforts were cancelled out by a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane, and with his team mate Charles Leclerc closing the gap on the final laps, Hamilton dropped to P5 at the chequered flag.
“Obviously frustrated, disappointed to come away with so little, given the car was good,” he said. “The team did a great job, but ultimately these last few races have been costly with mistakes from myself.”
Elaborating on how he views the first half of the season, he added: “It’s been OK. It’s not been perfect from my side, so I’ve really got to work hard to try to figure out how I can do better in the second half.”
Leclerc was similarly downbeat as Ferrari failed to capitalise on their early promise at the Hungaroring, with the Monegasque missing out on a third consecutive podium despite starting on the front row.
He lost several positions at lights out and later suggested that they should gamble on an alternative strategy, but ultimately joined Hamilton in stopping three times and edged ahead for P4 once the Briton’s penalty was added.
Reflecting on the opening lap, Leclerc said: “I knew it was a critical moment of the race and unfortunately I did the right procedure but for some reason… We all put the settings of the car to a certain place for the grip we expect, and for whatever reason that we need to analyse, we have overestimated the grip that was on the inside.
“We knew there was a difference between right and left but it was more than what we expected.
“We need to understand. Friday was particularly positive but I think that Mercedes was just running very low engine modes and then they seemed to be gaining a lot of performance.”
