Max Verstappen faces a grim forecast for Sunday’s 2025 Hungarian GP, with data from Free Practice 2 tipping the defending world champion to be half-a-second off the pace: But can Red Bull turn it around?
The four-time champion, regarded as the most talented driver in the grid, will not make an impression as far as the battle for the lead is predicted to go based on race pace information from Friday, August 1.
With an average lap of a 1:22.493 on the mediums, he is expected to finish over 40 seconds off the lead at the Hungaroring, a track he romped home to victory at by 33.7 seconds in 2023.
The data, supplied by @F1GuyDan on X.com, formerly Twitter, has Norris lapping at an average of 1:21.921, which is 0.572 quicker per lap than the Red Bull talisman. The projection has him winning the race ahead of Oscar Piastri.
The gap between the championship protagonists is forecast to be 19.3 seconds by the chequered flag (0.276 per lap), in what would be a statement drive from McLaren’s 25-year-old British talent before Formula 1 heads into the summer break.
In fact, for the championship leader, Sunday could be about looking in his wing mirrors more than anything else with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc posting an average lap-time of a 1:22.214.
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This long-run simulation has him finishing 1.19 seconds behind the Monegasque racer, but with DRS that could put the 27-year-old into the mix for an unlikely second-place finish.
Both Mercedes cars are expected to be nip-and-tuck with George Russell lapping an average of 0.025 quicker than his 18-year-old rookie teammate, Kimi Antonelli. Both are backed to beat Verstappen.
And a potential wildcard could be Sir Lewis Hamilton. The Brit didn’t run the medium tyres for his long run, choosing the softs, and averaged a 1:22.129. Whilst the softs give better early performance, they degrade quicker – especially on high fuel.
But, with Hamilton only completing seven laps versus Leclerc’s seven on the mediums, it’s likely that the degradation never took over from the outright pace of the red-walled tyre in the simulation.
Can we trust the race pace simulations?
However, this is all predicated on the drivers qualifying in accordance with their overall race pace projection – which may not necessarily be the case and with qualifying crucial, it could shake-up the Sunday guesstimates.
For example, how does the picture change if Norris has a bad lap in Q3 and qualifies sixth? What happens if Leclerc takes an unlikely pole position? If it rains, then all of this data means nothing.
And for Red Bull personally they will look to transform their fortunes around with a long night in the simulator back at Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom following their woes on Friday.
Despite the grim forecast in mind for Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda at the Hungarian GP, as they bemoaned the balance issues on their Red Bull RB21 can they turn it around?
Verstappen called the vehicle undriveable, whilst the Japanese racer concurred in his complaints. However, Red Bull are known for pulling off some remarkable set-up changes over night.
Could they do it again? They might find themselves back in the mix from Saturday’s Free Practice 3 session if they manage to land another Hail Mary attempt.
If they can get the Dutchman into the mix in qualifying and he can secure the all-important track position, then it could become an interesting Sunday similar to that of the Japanese GP, Emilia Romagna GP or Miami GP.
On those days, he took pole and had to be treated with extreme caution by both McLaren cars trying to race him. Watch out for Verstappen and his team turning their fortunes around.
