Race Report: Impressive Fightbacks and Damage Limitation in Budapest

• Kimi Antonelli finished third with George Russell P7 in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

• Both drivers started on the Medium tyre with George lining up P6 and Kimi P7.

• George unfortunately dropped to the back of the field after suffering anti-stall off the line; the team is investigating the cause.

• Kimi moved up to P6 and held that in the opening laps. From there, he ran a two-stop strategy by switching to the Hard tyre at both stops and built up a tyre offset on those ahead.

• That enabled him to cycle through to P3 and, despite an unfortunately timed Virtual Safety Car, he held off the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton to take the final spot on the podium.

• George meanwhile fought back valiantly and scythed his way through the field and back into the points.

• He also ran a two-stop strategy and fell just short of passing the Red Bull of Isack Hadjar in the final laps, settling for P7.

• The team heads into the summer break leading both the Constructors’ and the Drivers’ World Championships and returns to action in Zandvoort next month.

George Russell

That was another tough race. We lost lots of positions off the line and that ruined our chances of fighting for the podium. We’re not sure exactly what happened just yet. We did all the procedures as we normally do but it didn’t behave as we expected. The anti-stall then kicked in, and we dropped to the back of the field. The positive is that our pace across the rest of the race was strong and we were able to fight back to P7. That is not where we want to be finishing but is still points.

It has not been a smooth first half of the season. I am looking forward to this break so we can reset and come back stronger after the summer shutdown. It has been a bit of a rollercoaster on my side so far and I am hoping the second half of the year can be much better.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Today was the first race of the season where we were starting further back with both cars and therefore was about damage limitation. Kimi delivered a very measured race, and we used the flexibility of the two-stop strategy well. By managing the first two stints carefully, we were able to build a significant tyre life advantage over the cars ahead, and that gave him the pace he needed to move into podium contention in the final part of the race. The Virtual Safety Car was not ideal as it reduced that advantage and brought Lewis onto our gearbox, but Kimi managed the situation well and defended strongly to secure P3.

On George's side, we are obviously disappointed by the issue at the start. The anti-stall activation dropped him to the back of the field and made what was always going to be a challenging race even more difficult. We need to understand exactly why that happened, but once he recovered from the opening lap, his pace was very competitive, and he fought back through the field to salvage important points.

We head into the summer break leading both championships, which is a good position to be in, but we know there are areas where we need to improve. Reliability remains a key focus, and we will use the shutdown to analyse the first half of the season and ensure we return after the break ready for a very competitive run to the end of the year.