F1 Driver of the Day: Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had a splendid race, overcoming setbacks throughout the weekend to claim a podium finish at the Hungaroring.
The Hungarian GP saw Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton claiming the chequered flag. Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas finished a close third behind Max Verstappen, who withstood Bottas’s pace to finish second.
Max Verstappen deservingly won the Driver of the Day after finishing on the podium.
Both Red Bulls of Max and Alex Albon have had issues with pace and steer throughout the weekend, and looked nervy heading into the race. Albon started 13th on the grid, after a horrific second qualifying session on Saturday.
Unfortunate start to Race day for Max
Max Verstappen was unhappy with the lack of pace, and could only manage to qualify P7 on the starting grid. To make things worse, he crashed into the sides as he was heading to the starting grid for the formation lap.
The Red Bull mechancis did a fabulous job to bring the car back to order. As Max headed to the starting grid, he thanked the engineers for their stupendous recovery work, on radio.
A brilliant race from start to finish
Max Verstappen had a good start to the race, gaining five track positions to be behind race leader Lewis Hamilton. He regained his position towards the final few laps eventually after frantic pit stops by multiple teams. All the teams had to switch their wet/inter tyres to the hard or medium ones, as the track started to dry up.
With 11 laps remaining, Bottas was approximately 11 seconds behind Max, but closing on him rapidly in his fresh tyres. Bottas was gaining a second a lap over Max and looked set to reclaim the second position.
But Max Verstappen did a brilliant job and held on to a much-deserved second position. He thanked his team on radio right after crossing the finishing line, calling them legendary.
That is what the fans thought of Max’s performance as well, as he won the Driver of the Day online poll, ahead of Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
