Sebastian Vettel in Esteban Ocon’s victory in Hungary: in the rainbow in second place

Renault and Ocon at the top: “What can I say, Renault has finally arrived in Formula 1.” Esteban Ocon could hardly put his luck into words during the interview with the winners after the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Frenchman won a race for the first time at his 78th Formula 1 start. That was not to be expected and was also due to the strange course of the race – but in the end nobody cares. For Renault, which is behind the Alpine team and had only changed the name of the racing team before this season, the success was no less important. Since returning in 2016, the French car company has put a lot of money into Formula 1 and has had to take a lot of criticism for five relatively unsuccessful seasons. Now it worked, in Hungary Ocon was at the top.

Teared patience and motor: Before the race, the dominant theme was still the Hamilton and Verstappen accident at Silverstone two weeks ago. The Dutchman didn’t want to talk about it anymore: “We had to answer this stupid shit the whole time,” Verstappen said after qualifying. “So can we just stop doing that?” From a personal point of view, the crash and failure also had consequences for Verstappen: His team discovered a crack in the engine block and had to replace the power unit before starting. It was already the third engine change for Verstappen this year, each additional one now means a starting place penalty. And the season is very long with twelve races left. “The last two races were totally shit,” Verstappen said on Sky.

No intention, but: It only took a few seconds in the eleventh race of the season before new trouble arose in the explosive duel between Mercedes and Red Bull. Valtteri Bottas, the second Mercedes driver, got off to a catastrophic start on the intermediate tires that had been put on at short notice due to rain. He wanted to make up places before the first corner. But that failed completely, the Finn rushed into Lando Norris and as a result, Sergio Pérez, the second Red Bull driver, retired. Verstappen took 13th place after the crash and struggled with a lack of grip. The frustration at Red Bull was enormous, but one thing has to be said: It was not an intention on the part of Bottas, but a mistake with serious consequences. The Finn will almost certainly lose his cockpit at Mercedes at the end of the season.

Lewis alone at the start: One of the strangest scenes in Formula 1 history occurred after the restart of the race – after the Bottas crash, the track first had to be cleaned. After half an hour all the remaining cars drove out, but after the warm-up lap everyone turned back into the pit lane. The rain had stopped and slicks were the right choice again. Only Hamilton made a different decision – and was suddenly alone on the grid. The Briton drove one lap alone at the top, then he also came into the pits and had to start the hunt for the podium from 14th place.

Just past victory: The socio-political fighter Vettel, who told SPIEGEL weeks ago that he wanted to vote for the Greens in the federal election, could have celebrated his first victory for Aston Martin with a little more racing skills. On lap 37, after a long duel with Ocon, Vettel was the first to make the pit stop. The planned undercut failed, however, because, according to his own statements, he braked himself when entering the pit lane and because his team had a poor tire change in 3.3 seconds. So he stayed just behind the Frenchman even after Ocon’s tire change – and subsequently failed to overtake. “Of course I’m a little disappointed, I had the feeling that I was a little faster the whole race, but I couldn’t get there.”

Driver of the day: That afternoon in Budapest some drivers shone, but the award as driver of the day went to Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard in the second Alpine fought over several laps in a duel with Hamilton who, despite a massive speed advantage, initially failed to get past Alonso. Due to this delay, Hamilton could no longer tackle the top – Alonso thus also had his share in the first Alpine victory in Formula 1.

The wind turns: Mick Schumacher’s mishap in the 3rd training run annoyed his team boss. “The accidents are getting a little more frequent and more violent, we make too many mistakes,” said Haas boss Günther Steiner before the race, who expressly excluded Schumacher’s often-criticized team-mate Nikita Masepin from criticism: “We don’t speak in the plural. Nikita behaved well, he had no damage lately. But Mick had a few accidents in the last few races. ”For Steiner, the accumulation of crashes is also a financial issue. Schumacher hadn’t been able to take part in qualifying, in the race he couldn’t benefit from the chaos like others. At the finish, Schumacher was in 13th place.