Hungary and the summer break

Having won everything for years, Mercedes are having a poor year (where "poor" means "third team of ten" - it's all relative). But in qualifying Russell was fastest. So, game on? Of course not. Which should have left Leclerc to win, but Ferrari messed it up for him, as they keep doing. Verstappen started tenth, got everything right and won. Even when he spun and lost the lead, you knew he would come back. No one thinks that Verstappen won't be champion this year.

Now we're in the summer break. Everyone has to stop work and go home because the season lasts nearly all year now. Time for some driver changes. Vettel retires. I'm surprised he didn't do this earlier. Alonso gives up on Alpine and moves to Aston Martin, presumably hoping they'll make the huge leap forward that Alpine didn't, but he's joined teams plenty of times before with the same hope, and it hasn't happened.

Bonus stats

Comparing average qualifying position and race position, who gained or lost?

 4.84	Lance Stroll
 3.00	Nico Hulkenberg
 2.82	Sebastian Vettel
 2.46	Nicholas Latifi
 2.23	Lewis Hamilton
 2.15	Esteban Ocon
 2.15	Alexander Albon
 1.70	George Russell
-0.08	Zhou Guanyu
-0.15	Pierre Gasly
-0.31	Lando Norris
-0.46	Mick Schumacher
-0.53	Daniel Ricciardo
-0.54	Valtteri Bottas
-0.84	Yuki Tsunoda
-1.00	Sergio Perez
-1.53	Max Verstappen
-2.15	Fernando Alonso
-2.62	Kevin Magnussen
-3.85	Carlos Sainz
-4.30	Charles Leclerc

Now you can look at a good result here in two ways: "raced well" or "qualified badly" (special Latifi category: "started last and finished last, but other people dropped out"). It's pretty telling that both Ferrari drivers are at the bottom, let down by strategy decisions and reliability in so many races.

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