Lewis Hamilton shot right off pole, quickly surging into a comfortable lead in the early laps at the Hungaroring in the third race of the 2020 Formula 1 season, eventually taking the flag 8.7 seconds ahead of Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen to seal his second win in a row this season.
For his part, not only did Verstappen place poorly qualifying (qualifying P7 on the grid), he then went on to crash into the Turn 12 wall on his lap to the starting grid, requiring urgent repairs. Despite the setback, however, he claimed P2, fending off a determined Valtteri Bottas in the final stages of the race.
BWT Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, who qualified P3, couldn’t convert, finished a distant fourth. Meanwhile, a late pass from Red Bull’s Alex Albon on the Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow’s Sebastian Vettel gave Albon, who started 13th, a P5 finish. However, the Red Bull team were summoned to the stewards after the race for allegedly drying Albon’s grid spot ahead of the race start.
Vettel held off the second Racing Point of Sergio Perez in the final laps of the race, as the Mexican finished seventh, having started fourth, while Renault DP World’s Daniel Ricciardo made a monster 42-lap stint on mediums work to finish eighth.
With the track greasy ahead of the race start but the rain having stopped falling, an inspired strategy from Haas helped Kevin Magnussen take the team’s first points of the year, with Magnussen and Romain Grosjean pitting for slicks at the end of the formation lap as their rivals started on intermediates on the drying track, with the Dane eventually taking P9 after a fine race.
McLaren’s Carlos Sainz rounded out the top 10, thanks to a late-race pass on the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who ended up 11th.
Note: Provisional results. Hamilton scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.