Hungarian Grand Prix review (ad-free)
Added 2025-08-03 22:54:20 +0000 UTCEdd Straw, Jon Noble and Josh Suttill convene in Budapest to unpack the Hungarian Grand Prix, which was won by McLaren's Lando Norris after he held off charging team-mate Oscar Piastri in the closing stages. But why did Norris end up on the winning one-stop strategy, and why did Charles Leclerc’s victory chances evaporate after leading the first stint?
Those are among the questions answered in today's podcast, which also tackles the usual host of questions sent in by listeners in by you, The Race Members' Club.
Comments
We devoted so much time to it because we had countless questions from The Race Members' Club about it, and it was a huge topic in terms of the coverage and wider discussion among F1 fans generally. And if you listen to what we said, we were very clear in explaining how the race situation dictated how it played out. I'm not quite sure what you think is "learning from Drive to Survive" about this, but what I think you are getting at there does not remotely tally with the fact that it was the legitimate big talking point. We respond to what happens and the suggestion we were spinning something from nothing there does not remotely stand up.
Edd Straw
2025-08-05 07:51:16 +0000 UTCI understand where you are coming from - the way I calculated it was total pitlane time versus what it should have been so to reflect the time loss caused by the right-rear wheelgun problem that struck at both stops (that was nothing to do with anything Franco did). So perhaps could have been more precise in making clear that's what I meant, but when referring to time loss for pitstop will always be against a normal pitstop rather than anything else. Colapinto's pitlane times were 30.248s and 26.280s versus a total pitlane time you would expect to be in the mid 21s bracket. So if you take Gasly's normal pitlane time of 21.699 that's a time loss of 8.549s for the first stop and 4.581s from the second - so a combined total of 13.13s. When talking about the time loss you I don't count the normal pitstop time as that's what' you lose - hence the 13 seconds number. I use the total pitlane time because it's the most accurate measure. The TV coverage static times usually disagree with the teams' more accurate measurements so it's a good way to get a ballpark figure. I would say that Colapinto is getting there and rate him as a driver who can have a good future in F1 given the chance and hopefully he will have the chance to turn the progress he's making into results after the break.
Edd Straw
2025-08-05 07:45:15 +0000 UTCFor the record, Colapinto’s pit stops added to more than 18 seconds. The first pit stop was 11.1secs and the second pit stop was 7.2secs. When you say it was a 13secs delay, maybe you are comparing the 18secs to what would have been a normal 5secs (2.5secs x2)? I am saying because it’s important to be accurate, especially when everyone is judging Colapinto who ended up 18. He would have been much much better. I appreciate you guys having been objective in the podcast though and recognised the improvements. Too often people judge without even looking at the data.
Gabriel Buteler
2025-08-05 07:28:02 +0000 UTCI guess you guys are learning from Drive to Survive. This strategy conversation, isn’t really a conversation to anybody who watched the race live and understands why the strategic calls were made in real time. If I was Oscar, I’d be more frustrated with my side of the garage over anyone else.
James Johnson
2025-08-05 06:43:52 +0000 UTC
