If anyone at the dictionary admission committee is reading this; I suggest that the definition for ‘dramatic’ be changed to “2021 Hungarian GP”. No, seriously, as an avid watcher and reporter of the sport, I can’t say that I’ve ever witnessed such craziness.
And yes, there was another red flag – we’ve been seeing those pretty often during the 2020 season, seeing no less than four, the first time since 1995 when there were so many scarlet cloths waved. Now we’re about halfway into the 2021 battle and yep, already we have four race stoppages.
So, what happened? The race got underway in damp conditions with drivers opting to use the green-wall intermediate weather tyres. The problem, though, is that damp conditions relinquish any pre-existing grip and you can’t really blame drivers who are caught up in the heat of the moment to miscalculate that little detail. Now I don’t want to shift blame here but that’s exactly what happened as 20 drivers headed into the first corner. Lando Norris, who was off to a flying start, saw an opportunity to get past the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and veered off the racing line to overtake the Fin. A job well done, yes, but the wet conditions had the last say in the matter as the young Britton tried to make a move back onto the line resulting in a brake test for Bottas.
The result? A massive concertina effect ultimately swung the pendulum in favour of Lewis Hamilton in his quest for an eighth driver's title. Oh, and one heck of an expensive accident that led to the retirement of Lance Stroll, Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas and Lando Norris.
As a result of the collision, the floor on Max Verstappen’s Red Bull Honda sustained severe damage but even the red flag stoppage wasn’t enough to fix what eventually proved to be a crucial performance handicap – at least it held up with the makeshift duct tape fix. Apparently, duct tape can fix anything except performance shortcomings…
In any case, following the restart of the red flag period the crazy commenced. Hamilton who was leading the Safety Car train back to a standing race start was served a lemon (to put it politely) by the rest of the field as he chose to stay on the intermediate tyres, while the rest of the field opted for a pre-race start pitstop to exchange their inters for mediums. I, for one, can’t remember a race where only one car restarted a race from the actual grid…
Thanks to this large-scale confusion and pit stop mayhem, Esteban Ocon managed to secure the lead. Admittedly, I thought the Alpine would have to eventually yield the lead to former World Champion, Sebastian Vettel who was aggressively pursuing the Alpine’s rear diffuser but, well, the young Frenchman proved he can cope with the pressure, even in a car that’s struggling to make a dent in the midfield leading to a new first-time F1 winner. I hope the team principles have taken notice…
And there was another surprise! Both Williams drivers finally scored their first-ever points. Sure, luck was finally on the team’s side but those positions were well-earned since neither driver let off on the loud pedal at any stage of the Grand Prix – although things did look a bit dodgy for Russel at one point who seemed to have some sort of mechanical complication.
Even after the race, the theater continued, so much so that I'm having to reel myself back in and collect my thoughts. Lewis, following a sensational race of having to claw back positions to eventually stand on the podium, looked like he could hardly even stand as he clearly left everything on the track. Bottas received a five-place grid penalty for the next race after the stewards’ investigation concluded that he was at fault following that first lap incident. Insert shocked emoji here… If having to react to erratic bobs and weaves from other drivers in near-zero visibility conditions constitutes a penalty, the sport is not nearly as evolved as the powers to be will have us believe. Oh, and to make matters even more interesting, Sebastian Vettel has been disqualified from his second-place podium because he ran out of fuel crossing the finish line. Once again, this stems from a trivial sub-clausal section of the rule book the rule-makers thought will make the sport more interesting. But that's just my two cents…
At least no one can criticise the 2021 season for lacking anything on the interesting front.
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