‘It’s game on!’ – Hamilton warns Mercedes’ rivals at Hungarian GP

Lewis Hamilton has declared it is “game on” for resurgent Mercedes against their big rivals at the front of F1 after their back-to-back wins.

Ahead of a Hungarian GP weekend, which starts on Friday with first practice at 12.30pm live on Sky Sports F1 when they will go for a third win in succession, an upbeat Hamilton expressed his delight and optimism about Mercedes’ recent momentum two weeks on from ending his own 56-race win drought at Silverstone.

“We definitely don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, that’s key in our approach,” said Hamilton, the record eight-time winner at the Hungaroring.

“But, also, we’re like: ‘It’s game on!’

“We’re fighting, we’re chasing, and we’re going to try and win as many races as George mentioned or compete for as many wins as possible.

“[It] may turn out this weekend that the Red Bull is still light years ahead, or the McLaren is, still this weekend, who knows? But what we have shown over the past few races is that with determination, with real focus and just persistently chasing for perfection and improvement you can make a difference.

“We are united as a team and we are going to try and make sure we finish this season on a high. If we can lift the team up in the ladder of constructors, if we can progress – we are not too far off the drivers up ahead of us – then that will be great.”

“I’s really exciting for all of us.”

Team-mate George Russell shared Hamilton’s enthusiasm for Mercedes’ road ahead.

“If you told us at the start of the year we’d be fighting for three wins in a row, we wouldn’t have believed it,” said Russell, who won for Mercedes in Austria and took pole at Silverstone.

“We have led the last four races since the upgrades, which is an incredible turnaround for us and everyone is super motivated.”

Verstappen hoping ‘crucial’ upgrades boosts Red Bull

Mercedes’ back-to-back victories have seen Max Verstappen go successive races without winning for the first time this season, but the world championship leader is hopeful a significant Red Bull upgrade will boost his chances in Hungary.

Having made a dominant start to the season, Verstappen has won two of the last five races, with both of those being hard-fought victories in contests where he didn’t necessarily have the fastest car.

Asked how close he expects the likes of McLaren and Mercedes to be to Red Bull this weekend, Verstappen said: “Well, I think you turn it around – how close can we be to the competition?

“The last few races we have not been the quickest car so I don’t expect that to suddenly now be any different.

“Of course we bring upgrades, so hopefully that will give a good boost. At the moment, just want to try to see how that will work this weekend.”

The Dutchman’s consistency has enabled him to extend his world championship lead over McLaren’s Lando Norris to 84 points at the halfway point of the 24-race season, but he admitted a lot is riding on the upgrades that will be revealed in Friday’s opening practice sessions.

“We brought stuff but they were not particularly big, I would say,” Verstappen said. “So this one is a bit bigger than what we have brought. I think, for everyone, this is an important weekend.”

Asked if the results of this upgrade were crucial for the next couple of months, Verstappen added: “You could say that, yes. I think so.

“If this is not giving us some good lap time, then I don’t know how the rest of the season is going to evolve. But at the same time, I also don’t know what’s coming from the other teams, right? So we just focus on ourselves.

“We are bringing quite some things to the car. And of course, I hope that will give us a bit of lap time.”

Leclerc confident Ferrari will ‘bounce back’

Largely absent from the thrilling battle at the front in recent weeks have been Ferrari, but Charles Leclerc is confident the Italian team have resolved the bouncing issues that have caused them to struggle since his win in Monaco.

While his team-mate Carlos Sainz was able to salvage a podium in Austria, Leclerc has finished inside the points just once in the four races since he won at home for the first time.

“From Monza last year to Monaco this year, was a really good rate of improvement,” Leclerc said. “Then we went to Montreal where we had some issues with the power unit in the race which obviously cost us a good result.

“Then after I think the turning point was from Barcelona onward, where we obviously had an upgrade that induced quite a bit more bouncing and, on my side especially, from that moment onward I’ve been quite extreme in the change of set-up in order to try to find a way around those issues.

“You pay the price with the results, however you gain a lot of knowledge about those issues and I think will help us bounce back from this weekend onwards. For us, it’s obviously very important to lose as little races as possible to understand those issues, but I think now we understood better those issues and I’m confident that it will be better from this race onwards in order to maximise the points here and in Spa as well.”

Despite Ferrari’s poor run, the Italian team remain second in the constructors’ standings, 71 points back from leaders Red Bull and seven points clear of third-placed McLaren.

Leclerc admitted he was unsure whether the improvement he expects in Hungary will be enough to enable Ferrari to challenge Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes.

He added: “I think it’s a very difficult question to answer because from one weekend to another, when you look at the top two, three teams, it’s always a matter of a tenth or two, maximum. So to be precise in where exactly we are going to be is very difficult.

“But we will target the highest possible and if we optimise everything, there’s no reason why we can’t come back to a level of performance we’ve seen at the beginning of the year. That is the target.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Hungarian GP schedule

Friday July 19
8.50am: F3 Practice
10am: F2 Practice
12pm: Hungarian GP Practice One (session starts at 12.30pm)
2pm: F3 Qualifying
3pm: F2 Qualifying
3.45pm: Hungarian GP Practice Two (session starts at 4pm)
5:15pm: The F1 Show

Saturday July 20
8:45am: F3 Sprint
11.15am: Hungarian GP Practice Three (session starts at 11.30am)
1.10pm: F2 Sprint
2.15pm: Hungarian GP Qualifying build-up
3pm: Hungarian GP Qualifying
5pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook

Sunday July 21
7:20am: F3 Feature Race
9am: F2 Feature Race
11am: Porsche Supercup
12:30pm: Grand Prix Sunday – Hungarian GP build-up
2pm: The HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX
4pm: Chequered Flag: Hungarian GP reaction
5pm: Ted’s Notebook

Next up for F1 is the Hungarian Grand Prix from Budapest on July 19-21. You can watch every session live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership – No contract, cancel anytime

Source : Sky Sports