Max Verstappen becomes the 100th polesitter, Daniel Ricciardo records his worst grid slot since 2012 and 4th August continues to be a bad omen for the polesitter. Here are all the facts and statistics from the 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix weekend!
MAGIC MAX MAKES IT 100
On Saturday, Max Verstappen took the first pole position of his career, becoming the 100th different driver to take pole position in Formula 1 history. Strangely, the Hungaroring is also the venue where Heikki Kovalainen became the sport’s 100th different winner back in 2008.
Verstappen’s pole saw him become the fourth youngest polesitter in F1 history, behind Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc. It also saw the Netherlands become the 22nd different nation to start from pole, and saw the 2019 season become the first since 2012 to give two maiden polesitters over the course of a year. Both Verstappen and Charles Leclerc have taken their maiden poles this year, while Nico Rosberg and Pastor Maldonado became polesitters for the first time in 2012.
Red Bull started from pole position for the first time since the 2018 Mexican Grand Prix, while this was the first Honda-powered pole position since Jenson Button took pole for the 2006 Australian Grand Prix. It was the 78th Honda-powered pole position overall.
Verstappen became the fifteenth driver to take pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix, giving Red Bull their first pole at the circuit since 2011.
Pole was decided by eighteen thousandths of a second, making it the fourth closest qualifying session of the V6 hybrid era. It was also the smallest ever pole margin at the track, half of the previous record of 0.036 seconds from 1990.
Verstappen’s pole lap time was 1.598 seconds faster than the previous Hungarian Grand Prix, which was set by Sebastian Vettel in Free Practice 3 at last year’s event.
Verstappen’s streak of top five finishes has now lasted for over a year, with his second place in Hungary marking his 21st consecutive top five result. It was the 27th podium finish of his career, giving him the same podium tally as Bruce McLaren and Ralf Schumacher.
Michael Schumacher’s Hungarian Grand Prix Lap Record from 2004 was finally broken, with Max Verstappen lapping 1.968 seconds faster than the old record. Verstappen set the fastest lap of a race for the seventh time in his career and became the nineteenth driver to set the fastest lap at the Hungarian Grand Prix. He and Hamilton were the only drivers to lap faster than the existing record.
Verstappen recorded his first podium at the Hungarian Grand Prix, becoming the 35th different podium finisher at the Hungaroring. It’s the second podium for a Dutch driver at the track, the first since Jos Verstappen finished third in 1994. It marked Red Bull’s tenth podium finish in Hungary.
HAMILTON – 10 WINS FROM THE RECORD
On Sunday, Lewis Hamilton recorded his 81st Formula 1 victory, putting him ten wins away from equalling Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 91 wins. It was Hamilton’s eighth win of the season and his seventh at the Hungarian Grand Prix. It’s therefore the fifth time that a driver has taken seven wins at a single Grand Prix. The Canadian Grand Prix is the only other event which Hamilton has won seven times. Hamilton’s victory marks the twelfth win for a British driver at the Hungaroring, and his eighth podium finish at the track.
Lewis Hamilton becomes the first driver to have taken back-to-back wins at the Hungaroring on two occasions, having previously done so in 2012 and 2013. Hamilton won by almost the same margin this year as he did last year. In 2018, he won by 17.123 seconds, this year he won by 17.796 seconds. It’s his largest win margin so far at the circuit.
Mercedes recorded their 97th Grand Prix win, with Lewis Hamilton’s podium meaning that the team are now the fourth most successful in history by way of podiums. It was Mercedes’ fourth victory and seventh podium finish at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Mercedes are the first team to take consecutive wins at the Hungaroring since McLaren did so in 2011 and 2012.
SATURDAY STATS
Daniel Ricciardo recorded his first Q1 elimination since the 2017 British Grand Prix. After his grid penalty, Ricciardo lined up 20th on the grid. It’s his furthest back grid slot since he started 21st at the 2012 Korean Grand Prix.
George Russell recorded the best qualifying result of his career so far with sixteenth, narrowly missing out on reaching Q2. Russell finished the race in seventeenth, making this the first Grand Prix in his career where he’s finished in a lower position than where he started. Lance Stroll is now the only driver not to lose a position from his starting place in 2019.
For a second consecutive year, both Racing Point cars (formerly Force India) were eliminated in Q1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen recorded Alfa Romeo’s (Sauber’s) first Q3 appearance at the Hungaroring since Sergio Perez in 2011, while neither Toro Rosso appeared in Q3 here for the first time since 2012.
SUNDAY STATS
After the Hungarian Grand Prix, Mercedes still lead the way for most laps completed in Grands Prix so far this year, but Red Bull are just eight laps behind. The total distance covered by teams so far in 2019 is 67,604.353km. That’s over one and a half times the Earth’s circumference!
With fifth place in the Hungarian Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz recorded consecutive top five finishes for the first time in his career. He’s had three other top five finishes so far: fourth in the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix, and fifth in the 2018 Azerbaijan and 2019 German Grands Prix.
Sebastian Vettel recorded his 117th podium finish. It was Vettel’s seventh podium in Hungary, and the 25th Hungarian Grand Prix podium finish for a Ferrari driver.
Six races have been held on 4th August, and this is the fifth to have not been won from pole position. The only race held on this date to have been won from pole is the 1957 German Grand Prix, a Grand Prix which saw Juan Manuel Fangio claim his fifth and final World Championship crown.
The 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix was the shortest race on record at the circuit. 2019’s race lasted for one hour, 35 minutes and 3.796 seconds, 22.335 seconds shorter than the 2004 race, which was the previous record.
Kimi Raikkonen equalled Michael Schumacher for second in the all time list of finishes in F1. He’s crossed the line 237 times so far, and needs eight more finishes to equal Fernando Alonso’s record.
2019 marks the first time that three different teams have finished on the Hungarian Grand Prix podium since 2014. It was also Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes who finished on the podium on that day.
With 234 points left up for grabs in 2019, only the top fifteen in the Drivers’ Championship are still eligible to win this year’s title. For Alexander Albon to win this year’s World Championship he’d have to win every race and score the fastest lap at every round without Lewis Hamilton scoring any more points.
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