“If in doubt, one stop.” – Sun Tzu Lando Norris
Hey everyone, Dre here. And I’m sure you’ve probably already heard the news, but if you missed it on social media, it’s only fair I address this here too.
My day job as Production Coordinator at the Motorsport Network was made redundant this past Friday. I’m devastated, this really was a dream role for me. I spent my childhood years collecting magazines like EVO and Autosport, so being able to represent them in any role was an honour and it filled me with immense pride. Being trusted with Tank Slappers as well, was a privilege. It’s a chapter of my life that I’ll never forget. I’m not going to go into the politics of it, but safe to say, it’s a shitter for me and many many talented people beyond those doors.
I just want to use this space to say thank you to Jason Swales, Mike Spinelli and James Dickens for taking a chance on a ragtag part-time Podcaster and Writer like me, as well as Kevin Turner, who has been a brilliant Editor at the Magazine and beyond and was a joy to work with, as well as the rest of his editorial team (Haydn, Ed, Marcus, JBL, Fil, Ronald, Richard, Uri and many many more), and the rest of the superb video team (Ben, Charlotte and Matt).
As for me, I genuinely do not know what is next. I’ll be completely honest, I’m not sure there’s a full-time role in Motorsport left for me and my skillset, but I can promise one thing for sure, and that’s Motorsport101 will continue regardless. It’s my baby, it always will be, I pledged that I’d keep it alive even when under the Motorsport Network and WTF1 and that will continue.
We’re still here, and that’s not going to change.
Now, let’s talk about Hungary. Thank you for all the kind words and support, it’s been beyond touching.
Dre x
Splitting The Difference
This was another fascinating tactical race up the front of the field for one big reason – Charles Leclerc. He was a shock polesitter in the closest Top 10 Q3 session, with half a second covering the field, and just a tenth and change covering the first three rows. Not even Charles could quite believe what he’d done.
And for the first half of this race, the pace of his Ferrari held up. He gathered up a three-second lead early on and held off Oscar Piastri early on, also surviving an undercut attempt at the first round of pitstops to maintain a healthy second and a half advantage. Across the orange garage, Lando Norris was a tad unfortunate to drop back to fifth on the opening lap, and lost ground having to pass Fernando Alonso and George Russell on the road before slotting into the front running long on his medium tires.
Will Joseph, his race engineer offered him the chance to 1-stop on Plan A (After initially saying Plan A minus 5 due to tire complaints), and it opened the door to potentially make the alternative strategy work. Lando had to go 40 laps on the hard tire to make the flag, and it was going to be a tough task, but it was doable.
Meanwhile, Leclerc came in first for his second and final stop with Piastri running longer, a classic McLaren gambit for tire delta strength on the final stint. Piastri lost five seconds in the process, but quickly came back through Leclerc with authority, with the Ferrari man suffering a meltdown in pace and mental temperament on the final stint.
“This is so incredibly frustrating. We’ve lost all competitiveness. You just have to listen to me, I would have found a different way to manage these issues. Now it’s just undriveable. Undriveable. We’ll be lucky to finish on the podium.” – Charles Leclerc1
At time of writing, I’m still not 100% sure what caused it. Fred Vasseur said it was a chassis issue2, others have reported it may have been tire pressures. It’s still bizarre to me that a car that looked good to win, ended up fourth behind George Russell and 37 seconds off the win. Baffling. But it cleared the way for another intense McLaren fight for the win with five laps to go.
Piastri had gotten within DRS range but 20 lap old hard tyres and that new wave of Dirty Air was always going to make it tricky. The passing delta at Hungary was apparently 0.8 seconds a lap, and try as Piastri might, it was too big a hurdle to overcome having to nurse the car through Hungary’s technical layout.
It didn’t stop him from another hellacious Super Divebomb attempt on the penultimate lap, but a lock-up and a door that was always closing had Oscar back out. Second time he’s done that this season and both times, it may have cost him the win in the process. It’s nitpicky, but we have to be when the fight is this close.
With it, Lando Norris reduces the gap back to nine points, with 10 races and three Sprints left. And you have to say, whether it be by accident or on purpose, it’s refreshing to see McLaren put together a team of such strength via car, and drivers, and they let them race firmly, fairly, and are open to mixing up strategies. I know the Piastri fan club will be upset he had to two-stop, but he had to deal with the threat of Leclerc head on. Lando didn’t, and McLaren were smart to hit a pincer movement of strategies to open their options up. Remember, the priority is the team winning, not one driver over the other over there. Mission accomplished, their fourth 1-2 finish in a row. The last time McLaren did that was with Senna and Prost back in 1988.
This team is a juggernaut. The only question is, who takes the Drivers? Your guess is as good as mine.
The Lightning Round
Last time Max Verstappen went four rounds since his last podium? Bahrain 2018. It says a lot that after a poor qualifying session, fifth was the maximum on the table, and Red Bull didn’t commit hard enough to the 1-stopper early on to make it work. A miserable two points on the weekend for Milton Keynes. Will give Max this though, he was the only person who was making the pass at the chicane work. Bold stuff.
Lewis Hamilton missed out on Q3 by 0.015, called himself useless, then ran a Hard/Medium strat and finished where he started. Then Ferrari admitted after the race that Verstappen spooked him off the line without contact at Turn 4. Yikes. None of this is good, folks.
Stand by what I’ve said all season, George Russell is a viable contender for driver of the season. Has anyone extracted more out of their package this season? Sixth podium finish of 2025 for the Kings Lynn’ gangster.
Gabriel Bortoleto with a magnificent drive of his own to finish sixth, making the one-stopper work. Sauber’s pace is getting more genuine by the weekend and now both drivers are scoring points regularly. The fight for fifth in the Constructors is going to rumble on. Aston Martin chose an excellent time for their best weekend of the year with Alonso in P5 and Lance Stroll in P7. They’re now ahead of Sauber for sixth on 52 points to Sauber’s 51. Racing Bulls on 45 (Nice work from Liam Lawson in eighth), Haas on 35 still, and Alpine on 20. Great stuff.
Pit stop report – McLaren having the two best stops of the season so far at 1.9 seconds, while Franco Colapinto had a 12-second stop, and a 7-second stop. One foot out of the door towards holidays. Can relate.
So at what point do we say it’s okay to be a little concerned about Kimi Antonelli’s current form too? The wheels haven’t fallen off but there’s been a wobble in the car.
The Verdict: 6/10 (Decent) – That’s the funny thing about Hungary. On so many levels, it shouldn’t work as an F1 track, and yet, no track on the calendar has a greater knack of producing interesting races than it. Whether it be via rain, strategy, or racecraft, it finds a way. Great job to Hungary on the renovations for what its worth. Oh, and Orban is a twat. See you after the Summer Break.
- For what it’s worth – Have you ever seen F1 broadcast and transcribe a radio message that long? I know FOM has creative free reign on it, but that was far harsher to pin on them than the Chinese whispers about team orders in Shanghai. Offt. ↩︎
- George Russell had an interesting theory on this – He suspected that Ferrari may have been running really high tyre pressures and a lighter engine mode to avoid another DQ over their skid blocks, ala China. Anthony Davidson used the Sky Box to point out that Leclerc was sparking a lot early on too. If so, it’s a huge cock up from Maranello. Again. This was a podium car, easy. ↩︎
