Daniel Ricciardo celebrates his unexpected return to Formula One at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where fellow veteran Fernando Alonso won his first race 20 years ago.
Winning has become routine for runaway championship leader Max Verstappen, the overwhelming favorite for Sunday's race. The 25-year-old Red Bull driver is chasing a seventh straight win and ninth overall this season. He already has 43 career wins — three more than the 41-year-old Alonso and the 34-year-old Ricciardo have managed between them.
Verstappen was only 5 years old when Alonso won the first of his 32 races. It came at the Hungaroring in 2003 when Alonso drove for Renault, so long ago that Alonso even raced against Verstappen's father that day.
“You remember your first win,” said Alonso, who won two F1 titles with Renault in ‘05 and ’06. “You have a special relationship with that race and that city, and Budapest is one of my favorite cities.”
The Spanish driver produced a master class in defensive driving at the Hungarian GP in 2021, superbly blocking several attacks from Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton to help his then-Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon win the race.
Alonso is one of the best drivers of his generation and arguably the most widely liked among fans. But there has been one downside.
“No more privacy in my life since 20 years," Alonso said. “But I (would) not change anything, because it's still your own choice and you try to follow your dreams.”
Alonso is seeking a first win since the Spanish GP in 2013 in what has been a strong season so far for the Spanish driver.
His switch from Alpine to Aston Martin has yielded an unexpectedly high return of six podium finishes. It puts him in realistic contention to finish second in the standings.
Verstappen looks untouchable, leading his teammate Sergio Perez by 99 points, but Alonso is only 19 points behind second-place Perez.
“It’s going to be a tight battle until the end,” said Alonso, who is 16 points ahead of Hamilton in fourth. "Behind us there are some strong competitors."
Hamilton has won seven world titles — an F1 record he shares with Michael Schumacher — and a record 103 race wins. But he has not won since the penultimate race of the 2021 season, when he challenged Verstappen in a thrilling title fight that went down to the very last lap of the season.
There was no such drama last year, when Verstappen won a record 15 races on the way to his second title, and it's also been one-way traffic this season in a crushingly dominant car.
Red Bull has won every race, with Perez getting the other two, and 11 in a row including the final race of 2022 to match the record for consecutive wins set by McLaren in 1988.
Verstappen can help Red Bull break it on Sunday.
“I'm not really thinking about that,” Verstappen said. “If we win, it means we break that record, but it's more important that we win (the race).”
PEREZ UNDER PRESSURE
Perez's struggles continued when he crashed just three minutes into the first practice session on Friday.
Perez went over some grass coming out of Turn 5, lost control of his car and slammed into the crash barriers, bringing out a red flag. It was a bad error from Perez, who has failed to qualify in the top 10 in the last five races.
“I cannot believe this,” Perez said.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, who publicly supported Perez last week, looked concerned.
Perez is under contract through next year but there are already rumors that he could lose his seat to Ricciardo, if Ricciardo does well with AlphaTauri on his shock return to F1.
Ricciardo was released by McLaren last year but the Australian was handed an F1 seat by AlphaTauri — Red Bull's junior team — after Nyck de Vries was cut last week.
Ricciardo won seven of his eight career F1 victories with Red Bull from 2014-18, including a career-best three in 2014 when he outperformed four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel.
IMPROVING MCLAREN
McLaren’s 30 point-haul at the British GP two weeks ago was one more point than they’d managed in the previous nice races combined.
British driver Lando Norris finished second at Silverstone and the Australian rookie Oscar Piastri posted a career-best fourth.
“I think Silverstone with all the high-speed corners suited us quite nicely. Here is obviously a much lower-speed circuit so we’ll see,” Piastri said. “I think we will try and be optimistic that we can stay more towards the front, but whether we’ll be fighting for a podium again, I’m not quite sure.”
PRACTICE SESSIONS
The rain-soaked first practice at the Hungarian GP produced a second red flag near the end when Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr. slid sideways across the track and into the barriers.
Mercedes driver George Russell topped that session from Piastri and Aston Martin's Lance Stroll.
The track dried out for the second practice, led by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc ahead of Norris and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly. Verstappen placed 11th, Ricciardo was 14th and Perez 18th.
On Saturday, Verstappen goes for a sixth straight pole position.
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