So my thoughts of this race summed up:
Turn 1 (Max going off):
Initially thought that Max definitely had to give that back, because it initially looked like he went off on his own and wasn't ahead. Watched the replay later, and he indeed was ahead of Norris at one point, and Norris did push him a bit wide. IMO Max could prob have kept that position, but the Stewards being completely unpredictable probably made the decision to give it back the right call.
Red Bull first pit stop came too late:
I was watching the gaps, and calling for Red Bull to pull Max into the pits and undercut Hamilton, because it was possible without putting him into too much tactic.
Unfortunately for Max, Red Bull was a team that was indecisive on tactics today, and that allowed Hamilton to undercut Max. Their decision was probably fueled by the fact that they had only saved one set of hards, while Mercedes had two, so they wanted to extend the first stint. But instead, Max burned his tires fighting through the field today, and wasn't able to make up for it - pitting before Hamilton would probably have put Max on the podium today.
Complete botch job from Red Bull, but in regards to only bringing one hard tire, but also in not being too aggressive enough. They ruined the race for themselves today. At least Perez was able to score some points by going P16 -> P7 and redeem himself a bit. But Max was compromised from the first stop onwards, and arguably before the race even began due to the tire selection available.
Hamilton and Verstappen crash:
Initially it looked Max locked up and went deep (which he did), but also looked like Lewis turned into Max.
However, from watching the replay, Max car went a bit left when he locked up. You can make an argument for racing incident (Lewis actually even did in the cooldown room), but I cannot in any way, shape or form put the blame on Lewis here. It was too aggressive from Max.
I will have to review the incident later once i have access to brake telemetry. That's not gonna be available for a few hours more. But it seems to me either incident or Max fault.
Stewards not deciding above incident inside the race:
Once again completely unacceptable from the stewards. They don't need to summon the drivers for this.
We need these kinds of decisions to be made while the race is still going.
"Will be investigated after the race" is complete bullsh*t for an incident like this. Not that I think it was going to happen, but imagine if they had decided it was Hamiltons fault - he would have lost his podium to Leclerc then, yet Leclerc would have been cheated out of the ceremony. It's lazy. Apologies for swearing, but they need to do their ****ing job, and decide something like this before the race is over - there was plenty of time.
The McLaren drama:
Piastri definitely deserved this. But this was entirely avoidable from McLaren. It was gonna be a few laps before Hamilton would be able to threaten Norris, so there was plenty of time to pit Piastri first.
I'm happy that Lando did the right thing, because i believe Piastri deserved it today, but this is not on the drivers. The MCL pit wall seriously needs to sharpen up. They have two excellent drivers, and a pit wall that is like a dog chasing its own tail.
Also, Dialtone made this excellent point in the Discord chat:
Reprofile Turn 4 and extend the 2nd DRS zone:
There's a reason Hungary is called Monaco without walls. But i also see a solution: Reprofile turn 4 to be a lot less sharper, and then extend the 2nd DRS zone to go through T4.
The track is in general too narrow to overtake, so this won't solve all problems, and it will still be DRS overtakes (which I'm aware that a lot of people dislike). But it could help.
Oscar Piastri is the new Iceman:
Even winning the race (yes, under some dubious circumstances), he's just so chill. Love this chap.
