Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix for the eighth time to equal Michael Schumacher’s single-venue record and take the championship lead on Sunday. Hamilton’s latest victory from pole position was as comfortable as the nearly 9-second margin over second-place Max Verstappen suggested. The British driver’s 86th GP win moved him just five behind the German great Schumacher’s F1 record of 91.
Schumacher won the French GP eight times when it was held at Magny-Cours. Hamilton first won there in 2007 and his first success with Mercedes also came at the Hungaroring track in 2013, the year after replacing Schumacher on the Silver Arrows team. Verstappen drove superbly to hold off Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, who finished less than one second behind him in third to relinquish the championship lead after three races.
Hamilton took a record-extending 90th career pole on Saturday to match Schumacher’s record for seven poles on the 4.4-kilometer (2.7-mile) track nestled among rolling hills outside of Budapest.
He made a clean start but Bottas made a poor one from second and was overtaken by Lance Stroll starting third; the Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, and Verstappen from seventh.
Hamilton criticises ‘rushed’ anti-racism gesture
Hamilton criticised F1’s leaders after what he called a “rushed” anti-racism gesture by some drivers before the start of Sunday’s Hungarian GP. Hamilton again took a knee while wearing a Black Lives Matter Tshirt, but some drivers were either too late or remained standing. Only eight of the 15 who turned up on time joined the only Black driver in kneeling. “Moving forwards we need to speak to Formula One,” Hamilton told Sky Sports television. “They need to do a better job. It was such a rush. I was getting out of the car, running over, and quickly taking the knee.
“They (F1) need to do more, and I don’t know why they only did it for the first race at the start, they’ve not done it since then.” F1 allocated time before the season opener in Austria for drivers to show support for an anti-racism campaign but not for the second race at the Red Bull Ring or in Hungary.
