It’s the last race before the summer break, and Hungary provided us with a lot of good and bad surprises. Often referred to as “Monaco without the walls” and notorious for being hard to overtake at, the Hungaroring somehow never fails to deliver action on track. From Charles Leclerc’s lightning pole & shocking race result to Gabriel Bortoleto’s best grand prix finish to date, here’s what happened at the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix.

📊 Qualifying Highlights

The McLarens looked mighty throughout all three practice sessions of the weekend, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri neck and neck on the timing sheet. Charles Leclerc has shown some serious pace in his Ferrari, slotting in P3 in all practice sessions.

The Saturday qualifying session was one of the trickiest ones of the season for drivers and teams to manage. Track conditions, wind directions, and track temperature were all changing every minute. The big talking point was, of course, Lewis Hamilton’s early exit in Q2. The seven-time World Champion was at a loss for words during his post-qualifying interviews, calling himself “useless”, and that Ferrari should “change drivers”. His teammate, Charles Leclerc, put in a sensational lap in Q3, clinching pole position from the McLaren duo. The wind picked up drastically when Q3 came around, and most drivers were not able to improve from their best times in Q2, except Leclerc. The Ferrari ran a bit less downforce and had better top speed, which gave Leclerc the edge. In a weekend where the McLarens were unstoppable, the Monegasque driver once again showcased why he is considered to be one of the best over a lap.

The Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were dialed in on this weekend, especially considering they started last just a week ago in Belgium. In the past, we have seen the Astons look fast on Friday, only to fade on Saturday. This was not the case in Hungary. They decided to go out slightly earlier to avoid traffic, and the run plan paid off - as Alonso and Stroll lined up in P5 and P6, respectively.

⚔️The McLaren Title Fight (feat. Strategy Calls)

The race win boiled down to a strategic battle between two sides of the McLaren garages. Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris started in P2–P3, as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc kept his lead into Turn 1. The two papayas were put on different strategies, as Piastri ran a two-stop to cover off Leclerc, but Norris gambled on a single pit stop. This paid off brilliantly. After the first pit stops, Norris found himself in the lead, while Piastri and Leclerc had to pit again. On fresher tires, Piastri was eating into Norris’s gap lap by lap, setting the stage for a late-race duel. In the closing laps, Piastri repeatedly hunted Norris, but small mistakes prevented him from passing his teammate. Norris managed the pressure and nursed his hard tires to the end of the race. This 5th victory of 2025 for Norris was crucial: it cut his deficit to Piastri down to just nine points going into the summer break.

McLaren’s decision had once again caused discourse in the community. Coming into the Grand Prix, the two-stop strategy was heavily favored around the Hungaroring. However, it was not the case in the race, as the track temperature was lower than expected, which allowed the tires to last longer. Norris tumbled down the order in the opening lap due to a misjudgment, but he was put on the “ideal one-stop strategy” from the team. Understandably, the car behind had less to lose and often takes a gamble on pit windows, and Norris’s team did just that. During the race, Piastri’s race engineer, Tom Stallard asked the championship leader if he wanted to cover off Leclerc, or his main rival Norris, to which Piastri confirmed the latter, but still followed the two-stop call. With just nine points separating the pair heading into the summer break, every strategy call is crucial inside the McLaren pitwall.

🎢Leclerc and Ferrari’s Rollercoaster Weekend

Leclerc’s weekend was a tale of highs and lows. His Saturday lap was nothing short of perfection, stealing pole under tricky track conditions where no other driver was able to improve. In the race, he showed unexpected pace early on and was leading comfortably. But after his second pit stop, Leclerc’s pace collapsed, and he was nowhere near the other frontrunners. He was very vocal on the team radio to report the cuts on the straights and the lack of communication from the team, deeming the car felt “undriveable” and “incredibly frustrating”. Both Piastri and Russell passed him, and he even incurred a 5-second penalty for erratic defending. Leclerc ultimately finished 4th, miles behind the race winner, and well short of the win he had in hand. Team boss Fred Vasseur later admitted the final stint was “a disaster” due to a strange chassis issue – essentially a mystery fault that the team must now investigate. Leclerc himself was furious on the radio, but afterward apologized to the team for losing his cool; the Ferrari fault was beyond his control.

However, as rumors and analysis emerged after the race, the issue with the SF-25 was far more complicated than chassis damage, fuel saving, and a front wing adjustment. First brought up by podium finisher George Russell in his post-race interview, he suspected that Ferrari was “close to illegal” under Leclerc, and they were running on a different engine mode to raise tire pressure, which would help to minimize plank wear.

Ferrari has danced on the edge with floor limits all year, as both drivers were disqualified from the Shanghai GP earlier this year due to this exact issue. It felt like Ferrari did not expect their cars to be leading the grand prix, and thus miscalculated the amount of downforce the car generated. The team monitored the car bottoming out as the race progressed and decided to give Leclerc a different engine mode, which ultimately caused his drop-off in pace.

🚨A Weekend To Forget For Redbull

The reigning World Champion Max Verstappen confirmed he will stay at Redbull for the 2026 season despite heavy rumors in the past few weeks. The Milton Keynes-based team has been struggling big time, but Budapest was perhaps one of the worst weekends Red Bull can recall. The RB21 simply lacked grip on this slow-speed track. This time, even Max Verstappen could barely manage P8 in Qualifying and battled just to stay in the points; Yuki Tsunoda failed to get out of Q1. In the race, it was more of the same as neither car could run the preferred one-stop strategy because the tires degraded too quickly. Stuck behind the Alonso DRS train, Verstappen pitted on Lap 17, but cut off all possibilities of him pulling a one-stop. Redbull released Verstappen into too much traffic for both his stops. Despite his efforts to overtake the back-markers in the chicane, Verstappen only finished 9th. Tsunoda was a lap down in 17th.

🎉Midfield Surprises

Behind the four drivers in the front, the battle for points was tense in Hungary. Several underdogs grabbed headlines as Aston Martin enjoyed their best weekend of 2025: Alonso and Stroll finished 5th and 7th. Alonso, from P5, ran a one-stop race and managed to keep all of the cars behind with his DRS train. The result lifted Aston Martin into 6th in the constructors’ standings.

Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto was another star of the show. He once again made it into Q3 and secured a career-best P6 finish. The Brazilian rookie spent the race sandwiched between Alonso and Verstappen early on, then executed a one-stop plan to hold his ground to the checkered flag.

Liam Lawson finished 8th in the race, managing his tyres beautifully to stay ahead of Verstappen (P9) when it mattered. His form and confidence have returned after a short, rushed, and disastrous stint at Redbull.

🎖️ Winners & Losers

🏆 Winners:

Lando Norris – strategy gamble paid off - narrowed the championship gap.

Aston Martin – huge turnaround in performance, strong run plan, and strategy that led to a double point finish
Gabriel Bortoleto – exceptional qualifying, brilliantly executed race, and a career-best result.
George Russell – jumped Norris at the start and secured an unexpected podium.

❌ Losers:

Charles Leclerc – from qualifying in pole position to being nowhere in his third stint, Leclerc was once again let down by the car’s issues.

Max Verstappen – the Redbull was not competitive at all this weekend, pitted early and faced a ton of traffic, could not make up the time loss with his overtakes.
Lewis Hamilton - disastrous qualifying result at one of his favorite tracks destroyed his confidence this weekend, and he did not make much progress in the race.

🇭🇺 Looking Ahead: Summer Break & Silly Season

Summer break is here, and we have officially wrapped up the first half of the season. Although no teams are allowed to work in the next few weeks, some silly season speculations are not going anywhere. Could Cadillac announce their driver lineup before Zandvoort? Would it be a pairing of experienced race winners Bottas-Perez, or one of them with a promising rookie like Felipe Drugovich? Will Mercedes finally finalize contract extensions for both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli? Hopefully, the next few weeks will give us a better idea of what the grid will look like in 2026!

In the meantime, enjoy the summer and watch out for Grill the Grid!

Ferrari’s Mysterious Downfall, Aston’s RESURGENCE, and Bortoleto’s Breakthrough: What Happened at The 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix