F1 Hungarian GP preview – CopyBet
The Formula 1 teams and drivers can look forward to a four-week summer break soon, but first they make the trip to Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
McLaren have been the story of the season and the Hungaroring looks set to host another straight fight for victory between team-mates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
Hungarian Grand Prix
Piastri extended his championship lead over his McLaren team-mate Norris to 16 points with victory in Belgium last week.
Not for the first time, Norris paid a heavy price for a small mistake. Having started from pole position, the Briton got a poor exit from the first corner and Piastri slipped past on the way to the next braking point.
To exacerbate matters, Norris then had to wait an extra lap before switching from wet tyres to slicks, costing him several seconds.
It was a similar story in Hungary last year, where Norris took pole position but a poor getaway saw him lose the lead immediately to Piastri, who would go on to claim his maiden F1 victory.
There remains a strong impression that Norris is naturally the faster driver of the two, but Australian Piastri makes the fewer mistakes and probably has the edge in terms of racecraft.
Little wonder, then, that bookmakers struggle to pick between them in the antepost markets, but Norris holds slightly more appeal at 7/4.
He has improved his form since the team changed the suspension on his car, winning in Monaco, Austria and in Britain, and if he can stay error free this weekend then a fifth win of the season could be coming his way.
Hungarian Grand Prix
While he has effectively dropped out of the title fight, Max Verstappen is making his case for being the best driver on the grid by conjuring excellent results from an evil-handling Red Bull.
His team-mate Yuki Tsunoda has struggled to get anywhere near Verstappen's performance level, but he appeared to take a step forward in Belgium. That weekend also marked the first race with Laurent Mekies, Tsunoda's former team boss, in charge at Red Bull.
That may not be a coincidence and Tsunoda was unlucky not to earn a decent points finish after the team left the Japanese driver out on a dry track with wet-weather tyres for too long.
Tsunoda has a decent record in Hungary, finishing ninth last year for Racing Bulls and sixth on his first visit to the circuit in F1 in 2021.
The 25-year-old is 7/4 for a points finish, but with little likelihood that Verstappen will be out of the top ten, the 15/8 for both Red Bulls to score points makes more appeal.