Mercedes
Russell started on hard tyres, took a long opening stint to get back into the points and made no mistakes, except for being passed by Perez in the second round of stops to take seventh. But Hamilton had a more eventful race. He briefly battled with Norris for third in the opening corners before settling for fourth. He passed Verstappen twice to take third, defending with all he had to keep the faster Red Bull at bay. got in touch In the end, Hamilton managed to continue and claim his third podium of the season.
Lewis Hamilton, 3rd
“Firstly, a huge congratulations to McLaren for the one-two and to Oscar (Piastri) for his first win. They were incredibly strong today and deserved the result. Oscar has been doing a fantastic job since he came to F1, he has been very consistent and it was only a matter of time before he took a win.
“The team has done a great job to continue making progress with our car. We knew we didn’t have the speed of Oscar or Lando (Norris) today, but we were able to secure the final podium spot. It was a challenge at times to keep Verstappen behind while also making the tyres last. Our battle at the end was a bit hair-raising, but that’s motorsport. I’m really happy to be back on the podium and to score another good haul of points. We now head to Spa with the intention of finishing the first half of the season on a high.”
George Russell, eighth
“Congratulations to Oscar on his win today. McLaren have been really strong and he’s been driving really well, so it’s more than deserved.
“We knew after yesterday’s problems in qualifying that we were probably aiming to be ‘best of the rest’ today. We struggled a bit more in these very hot conditions so we couldn’t quite manage that. Sergio Perez’s Red Bull was quicker than we expected but we made a good effort to get past him. Getting eighth place and the fastest lap was a solid recovery.
“We can also take something positive from the fact that the team has now finished on the podium in five consecutive races. We have made consistent steps forward and the car has performed much better in recent Grands Prix. Lewis drove a great race today and showed what the car is capable of. We are now very closely tied at the front between a number of teams. We know we need to make the most of every opportunity we get and run clean weekends to score good points. We will aim to do that starting next week at Spa.”
Toto Wolff, director of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
“To get a podium place, our fifth race in a row, is a really good feeling. The McLarens were very strong today and couldn’t catch us in these hot conditions. Congratulations to them and to Oscar – they deserved the win today. However, we were able to maximise the result with Lewis and that’s encouraging. Seeing Lewis take his 200th F1 podium and 151st with our team was great.
“Yesterday’s setback to George forced him to fight for the rest of the field. In the end, he managed a good recovery from the starting point. It was a tricky race for him, with a lot of traffic in his pit window for much of the afternoon. Without that, he could have managed one more position, but it was still a solid effort. We now head to Spa, where conditions will probably be cooler and we hope that will suit us a bit more.”
Andrew Shovlin, Director of Track Engineering
“First of all, congratulations to McLaren and Oscar. A one-two is a very difficult result to achieve and they are setting the bar very high at the moment.
“It was great to see Lewis on the podium today. Going from fifth to third was a good achievement, considering we had to overtake Verstappen to do it. We were able to maximise the result with him today as, without incident, we simply didn’t have the pace to compete with McLaren.
“With George we qualified way down in the standings yesterday. That denied him the chance to compete for much more than the minor points. He recovered well and came close to catching Perez’s Red Bull, but we’ll make sure we learn from what we learned yesterday and perform better in the future.
“Now we turn our attention to Spa. We still have work to do to be at the front every weekend, but we are heading in the right direction. The energy and enthusiasm in the team is palpable. We have a few days to regroup and prepare; it will be interesting to see how the W15 responds to colder conditions than we experienced here in Hungary this weekend.”