The 2025 Hungarian GP could be the start of a nail-biting Papaya war

The final race before the Formula 1 summer break is the Hungarian GP, taking place at the Hungaroring, a track known for how hard it is to pull off overtakes due to the multiple high/medium speed corners that are chained together, alongside the lack of overtaking opportunities apart from the pit straight.

With the championship battle happening between the two McLarens, a surprise pole position from Charles Leclerc and his Ferrari, and the Aston Martins finding pace, the weekend was shaping up to be an exciting one, especially since we were expecting fair, dry weather this time around.

Lando Norris overcomes the odds

Despite Lando Norris starting in P3 and fumbling his start, it was interesting to see how strategy can make or break a race. Oscar Piastri was hot on the heels of Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) for the first half of the race, up until it was time to pit.

Interestingly, Norris was on a one-stop race strategy (which he made work), while Piastri was a two-stop effort for McLaren.

Lando was able to make it stick as Oscar emerged from traffic from the second stop, but the Australian driver was busy climbing up the ranks like a frenzied rat, up until Lap 69 when the two were super close.

At that time, Piastri had a lock-up while trying to overtake Norris at the end of the pit straight, meaning the win was clearly for Lando. He finished P1, while his teammate finished in P2.

Ferrari doing Ferrari things

Even Charles Leclerc did not expect him to get pole position after the qualifying weekend, especially with how badly Lewis Hamilton was performing.

The Ferrari of Leclerc proved to be a rocketship during qualifying and the first few stages of the race, even comfortably gaining a few seconds off the speedy McLaren of Piastri. All was going well, even after the first pit stop.

It looked to be a fairly uneventful race until Lap 41, when Charles pitted, and then all of a sudden the Ferrari started losing pace to the two McLarens.

We even got this fairly entertaining radio message from Leclerc shortly after.

There was even a tight battle between him and George Russell (Mercedes), where Charles ended up braking very late to prevent Russell from overtaking, but it was a very dangerous maneuver that resulted in a five-second penalty.

Leclerc finished P4, with the remaining podium spot going to George Russell.

As for Lewis, he had a weekend to forget, finishing the race in P12 and having a very close encounter with Max Verstappen on Lap 30.

The rest of the field behind the Aston Martin train

It was a bit of a shocker to suddenly see Aston Martin get a lot of pace, with both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll qualifying for P5 and P6. Even fairly early in the race, the two managed to hold their ground well, sans those who were overtaken by Max in the early stages.

For some reason, Red Bull was totally off the pace, with Liam Lawson (RB) finishing P8, ahead of his former teammate. Max Verstappen pulled off several daring moves and overtakes, but it wasn’t enough for him to get into the top five, finishing P9. And rounding up the points places is Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) in P10.

Oscar still leads the driver’s championship with 284 points, but now Lando is trailing very close behind with 275 points, a nine-point difference between the two. It’s now the summer break for all the racers, with the next race taking place on August 31 in the Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands, or the Dutch GP.

^{Photos from Formula 1}