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Max Verstappen won the 2023 Hungarian GP in a very dominant fashion. While he might (or might not) be a little upset about the broken trophy, he would be happy with how his weekend panned out.
Losing out on pole position was disappointing, but the way he came back from it to dominate on Sunday showed how good the car is right now. While it was all smiles at Red Bull, not every team would be happy with how the weekend unfolded.
There will be a few upset at how the 2023 Hungarian GP panned out. Who are they? Let's take a look as we list the winners and losers for the race weekend.
2023 Hungarian GP
Winner
Max Verstappen
Verstappen was not happy losing pole position on Saturday, and you could see it on his face.
As soon as the lights went out, the driver was a man on a mission. With Verstappen close to sealing another world title, he's not as conservative now as he was earlier in the season.
He threw the car down the inside of turn 1 and never looked back. It was his seventh straight win to match Nico Rosberg's streak. If it all goes to plan, Verstappen is on his way to matching Sebastian Vettel and Alberto Ascari's record of nine consecutive wins in his home race.
Loser
Lewis Hamilton
It was a feel-good moment on Saturday when Hamilton got pole position, but he will be gutted on Sunday, as he knows he cost himself a podium.
If he had managed a better race start and stayed ahead of the McLaren duo at the start of the race, he would have had a better finish. A podium went begging this weekend for Hamilton, and that's got to be frustrating.
Winner
McLaren
The 2023 Hungarian GP was the ultimate litmus test for McLaren. If the car worked on this track, it would mean that the biggest Achilles heel for the team would be cured.
A P2 finish means McLaren are now a frontrunner, and the results have not been a fluke in any way.
Loser
Alpine/Ferrari/Aston Martin
The first few races of this season had been all about teams taking the grid by storm and placing themselves in the perfect position to challenge Red Bull.
Ferrari got the first non-Red Bull pole in Baku. Aston Martin became a consistent podium contender with Alonso, while Alpine got a podium with Esteban Ocon.
Since Mercedes and McLaren introduced their upgrade packages, though, things have gone downhill quickly for these teams. Ferrari continue to be error-prone. Aston Martin are mysteriously off pace, while Alpine can't put a weekend together anymore.
The 2023 Hungarian GP showed that these three teams need to work on getting that efficiency up, because if that does not happen, they're going to lose out big time.
Winner
Daniel Ricciardo
He came; he saw, and he conquered. Daniel Ricciardo came into the 2023 Hungarian GP underprepared. He had not even completed a single lap in that AlphaTauri before this weekend and had the task of beating a driver who has not been outperformed by his teammate all season.
However, that was exactly what Ricciardo did this weekend, The Australian took his time, learned the car, got better with every lap, and when push came to shove, he outqualified Yuki Tsunoda.
In the race after being hit by Zhou Guanyu at the start of the race, Ricciardo made sure to keep his cool, climb his way back through the field and finish ahead of his teammate. The 2023 Hungarian GP checked all the boxes for the Australian, and it's very difficult to do such a thing in your first weekend after a long layoff.
Loser
George Russell
George Russell's key forte last season was his ability to stay consistent and when push came to shove, pull out a stunning result. That was what he did consistently last season and made his name. That was how he got the pole position at the 2022 Hungarian GP last year and got the win in Brazil.
This year, though, things aren't going his way. The safety car calls haven't worked for him. He has made more mistakes and had reliability issues. Moreover, it does appear that Hamilton has him covered now in terms of performance.
Hamilton has been the one grabbing all the headlines this season while it was Russell who did that in 2022. The younger Briton needs to script a turnaround and do it quickly.
