Sergio Perez claimed F1’s ‘Driver of the Day‘ award with his comeback drive at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Mexican started in ninth and finished third at the Hungaroring, overtaking Fernando Alonso, Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton in the process.
A disappointing start to the weekend saw Perez crash in Free Practice 1, but his race pace proved strong as he moved through the pack.
Perez overtook Alonso early on, before pitting to undercut Hamilton after a few bites at the cherry didn’t turn out to be fruitful on track.
He then got past Piastri after a pit-stop, running the Australian off-track, but the FIA deemed ‘no further investigation’ on the incident.
He then chased after Lando Norris, in second, but could not catch the Briton before coming under pressure from Hamilton as the Mercedes came alive at the end of the race on low-fuel.
Verstappen breaks record
Meanwhile, Verstappen won from Lando Norris by 33 seconds to break McLaren‘s record set in 1988 of the most consecutive wins with 12.
Elsewhere, George Russell recovered to sixth from 18th and Charles Leclerc finished 8th for Ferrari after receiving a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit-lane.
Both Alpines retired from the race after opening lap contact, the third double-DNF of the season for the French team.
The pair collided after Zhou Guanyu hit Daniel Ricciardo, and then hit Esteban Ocon into his teammate, Pierre Gasly.
It’s the second consecutive double-DNF for Alpine, who also retired in Silverstone.
Red Bull are now able to win their second Constructor’s Championship in Monza and Verstappen bears down on a third consecutive Driver’s Championship after extending his lead to over 100 points.
