ANALYSIS: Red Bull endured shocking setback in Hungary, Ferrari achieved the biggest gain compared to last year
Although McLaren took a commanding one-two finish at last Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, Ferrari achieved the biggest step in performance compared to last year's Mogyoród F1 round. F1Technical's senior writer Balázs Szabó delivers his latest analysis.
The Hungarian Grand Prix saw McLaren dominate proceedings. The Woking-based outfit secured a front row lock-out with Lando Norris (1’15”227) on pole ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri by just 22 thousandths (1’15”249).
On the second row of the grid, we found Max Verstappen in the Red Bull, third in 1’15”273, just 46 thousandths of a second slower than Norris, and Carlos Sainz fourth for Ferrari, 469 thousandths down. The faster Mercedes ended up fifth on the grid with Lewis Hamilton fifth just fractionally behind Ferrari's Spanish driver.
The race saw McLaren carry over its dominant form with Piastri and Norris securing the Woking-headquartered squad's first one-two finish since the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.
Red Bull appeared to be the second-quickest team while there was nothing to chose between Mercedes and Ferrari in race trim.
Assessing the improvements teams have achieved compared to last year's Hungarian Grand Prix, Ferrari stood out as the Scuderia have made huge inroads in terms of race pace.
As seen on the diagram provided by Formula Data Analysis, the Maranello-based found 0.67s per lap compared to the race pace it displayed last year. The SF-24 was particularly strong in the hands of Charles Leclerc, who extended his opening stint in order to chase an aggressive offset strategy.
The Monegasque delivered eye-catching lap times on Pirelli's hards during his second stint, but Ferrari made a mistake by calling him in early for his second stop.
The early second stop meant that he could not extract everything from his relatively fresh hards, and was forced to complete 30 laps on the medium compound during his last stint. More crucially, he was stuck behind Hamilton, meaning he could not exploit the peak grip of his fresh mediums.
Commenting on the Hungarian Grand Prix, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur said that while he was not completely happy with the fourth and sixth place, he was delighted with the progress the Scuderia has made compared to last year's Budapest F1 race.
"We definitely have to continue. I am not happy with the result, I do not want there to be misunderstandings. I am not happy to be 20 seconds behind someone, but last year we were 65 seconds behind the leader,” the Frenchman concluded.
McLaren found the second biggest step compared to last year with their race pace having been 0.59s quicker than what they showed last year.
RB was 0.56s per lap quicker in 2024 compared to last year. Yuki Tsunoda executed a one-stop strategy in brilliant fashion to fractionally finish ahead of Aston Martin's Lance Stroll in P9, taking two points for himself and the Faenza-based outfit.
His team-mate Daniel Ricciardo endured a much tougher racein Mogyoród as he was called in very early for his first stop which meant that he spent the majority of the remainder of the Hungarian Grand Prix stuck behind traffic.
Two other teams improved their race pace compared to last year: Haas (0.5s), Mercedes (0.37s). Williams and Aston Martin managed to replicate what they achieved last year.
Continuing their tough season, Kick Sauber was 0.15s per lap slower than last year.
Red Bull endured the biggest shock at the Hungaroring. The Milton Keynes-based outfit was 0.21s per lap slower than a year ago. It was a huge setback for Red Bull as Max Verstappen finished over half a minute in front of Lando Norris last year, and almost lapped Charles Leclerc, who finished ahead of the Dutchman this year.
