Red Bull Motorsports
F1
F1 to 10: What really happened at the Hungarian Grand Prix
Oracle Red Bull Racing created F1 history by winning a 12th straight race in Budapest, as Max Verstappen's run of victories hit seven with his most emphatic performance so far in 2023.
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1. Hungary in exactly 74 words*
Oracle Red Bull Racing set a Formula One benchmark in Hungary with a 12th consecutive victory. The team breaks McLaren's 1988 streak of 11 wins in succession as Max Verstappen won his seventh race in a row to maintain the team's unblemished 2023 record. McLaren's Lando Norris finished second for the second straight race, while Verstappen's team-mate Sergio Pérez produced a storming drive from ninth on the grid to third, his best Budapest result.
*2023 is the 74th season of the F1 world championship
2. The Hungarian GP in six pics
3. Max shrugs off defeat, squashes front-row curse
Max crossed the line with a season-best margin over the rest
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Rewind to Saturday, and the odds of Verstappen extending his winning run – and as a result, the team's – weren't a long shot, but weren't a certainty either. The Dutchman was beaten to pole position by the minuscule margin of 0.003s by Lewis Hamilton – the Mercedes driver taking his ninth Hungarian pole, the most poles at a single circuit by any driver ever.
Verstappen starting from second at a notoriously dirty off-line circuit wasn't a great omen, given second place had won in Budapest just once in the previous 12 Hungarian Grands Prix. But the reigning world champion made light of statistical precedent by getting away brilliantly, claiming the inside line into the first corner, and clearing away from the chasing pack initially led by McLaren rookie Oscar Piastri at a rapid rate.
Verstappen's eventual winning margin of 33.731s was his largest this season. The gap came after a weekend where he'd not topped a single on-track session all weekend before the race, a rarity in a season where he's now won nine of the 11 races and has a 110-point advantage at the halfway stage.
The fastest lap of the race just after his final pit stop was imposing – a time of 1m 20.504s on lap 53 was over a second quicker than anything anyone else managed all afternoon.
Normally, Pérez would be disappointed with the 37-second gap to his team-mate at the checkered flag, but third place for the Mexican at what has been a barren venue throughout his F1 career was a podium long in the making, and one that came at an opportune time.
Pérez made it into Q3 on Saturday for the first time in six races and elected to run with the hard-compound Pirelli tires at the start of the race in an attempt to use a longer first stint before his pit stop to vault up the order. It worked, Checo rising to second by Lap 21 and then using several feisty passes on George Russell (Mercedes) and Piastri to secure third with 20 laps remaining.
Norris remained within touching distance as the laps counted down. Still, he lapped traffic scuppered any chances of a second-place finish, Pérez ending up three seconds adrift of the McLaren at the checkered flag as he banked his sixth podium of the year – and earned Driver of the Day honors from the sport's fans.
4. Ricciardo's long road to recovery
Ricciardo's tire management skills came to the fore
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Daniel Ricciardo started and finished 13th in his first race back after taking over at Scuderia AlphaTauri for Nyck De Vries. However, it was far from a straightforward race for the eight-time Grand Prix winner, a marathon final stint hauling him back up the order after a first-corner collision.
The Australian was impressive on Saturday by making Q2, the first time the team had escaped the first phase of qualifying for four races. Still, his qualifying efforts looked set to go to waste after Alfa Romeo's Zhou Guanyu harpooned him at the first corner. Ricciardo's AT04 was pinballed into the path of Alpine pair Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, who both had to retire with damage.
From last place, Ricciardo dug his heels in and showed the value of his experience, spending 40 laps on the same set of medium tires to end the race where he started.
New team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was a brief beneficiary of the first-corner mayhem as he rose from 17th to 11th as the field scattered to avoid the spinning Alpine duo, but a difficult hard tire stint saw him fall back behind Ricciardo and finish 15th, extending his run of races without points to seven.
5. The number you need to know
251: First and third for Verstappen and Pérez saw Red Bull surpass 250 F1 podium finishes, becoming just the fifth team (behind Ferrari, McLaren, Williams and Mercedes) to achieve the milestone.
More F1 to watch and read
6. The word from the paddock
Finally, we had a really good start! When I had the inside, I knew that corner was mine. For the team, 12 wins in a row is just incredible … a day like today is just perfect
7. The stats that matter
Drivers' championship top 5
Position
Driver
Team
Points
Gap
1
Max Verstappen
Oracle Red Bull Racing
281
-
2
Sergio Pérez
Oracle Red Bull Racing
171
-110
3
Fernando Alonso
Aston Martin
139
-142
4
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
133
-148
5
George Russell
Mercedes
90
-191
Constructors' championship top 5
Position
Team
Points
Gap
1
Oracle Red Bull Racing
452
-
2
Mercedes
223
-229
3
Aston Martin
184
-268
4
Ferrari
167
-285
5
McLaren
87
-365
8. Away from the track
The version of the RB19 that took Verstappen and Pérez to the team's fourth 1-2 result of the year at the Miami Grand Prix looked as sweet as it raced, thanks to a special Florida-inspired pink, blue and purple paint job created as part of the 'Make Your Mark' campaign.
Argentina's Martina Andriano won the fan-led competition from members of 'The Paddock,' the team's free loyalty program, as part of an opportunity to reboot the RB19's paint scheme. Hear from Martina about how her design was the one chosen, and watch how the livery came together in the video below.
3 min
Discover How The Miami Bull Was Born
Hear from the fan who designed our RB19 Livery that debuted in Miami
9. Where to next, and what do I need to know?
Round 12 (Belgium), July 28-30
Circuit name/location: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot
Length/laps: 7.004km, 44 laps
Grands Prix held/debut: 55,1950
Most successful driver: Michael Schumacher (six wins)
Most successful team: Ferrari (14 wins)
2022 podium: 1st: Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing), 2nd: Sergio Perez (Red Bull Racing), 3rd: Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
10. Inside the wide world of Red Bull Motorsports
Márquez calls his team his second family
© Red Bull Media House
Marc Márquez has been full steam ahead for much of his time in MotoGP, and it's an approach that has worked wonders, winning eight titles in 10 seasons, six of them in the premier class.
So when setback after setback befell him after a crash in Spain in 2020 altered the course of his career, the Spanish star realized he "needed to change something" to get back to his winning ways. He learned to work backwards to achieve his goals.
Mind Set Win host Cédric Dumont hears from the MotoGP legend before sharing an exercise everyone can adopt to reach their targets by using the alternative goal-setting process of reverse planning.
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