Red Bull’s 12th straight win, dating back to the final race of 2022 in Abu Dhabi, was the Dutchman’s seventh in a row and ninth of the season.

The feat broke McLaren’s record of 11 consecutive victories set in 1988 with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

Lando Norris of McLaren held off Red Bull’s Sergio Perez to take second place.

Lewis Hamilton, who started from pole position, came down on Perez in the final circuits but was unable to pass him and had to settle for fourth place.

‘The Red Bull rocket machine has the ability to win the race.’
Hungarian Grand Prix review on the Chequered Flag podcast
Hamilton stopped Verstappen’s run of five consecutive pole positions on Saturday, taking his first since 2021.

Given the Red Bull’s superior race speed, the seven-time champion always felt he would struggle to match it, but whatever aspirations Hamilton had of launching a fight vanished within a few seconds after the start.

Verstappen was alongside the Mercedes on the inside on the run to the first curve thanks to a stronger start by the Red Bull driver.

Verstappen took the lead as they turned in and motored away into his own race at the front. His victory gives him a 110-point championship lead over Perez.

Hamilton’s attempts to keep the lead by pressing Verstappen tight to the inside cost him two positions, as the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris both past him and dropped him to fourth.

Norris then past Hamilton at Turn Two after Piastri sped around the outside of the bend to seize second place ahead of his teammate.

However, the McLaren drivers’ positions were swapped at the first pit stops, when McLaren stopped Norris first, giving him the opportunity to ‘undercut’ ahead of the Australian.

Norris was unable to challenge Verstappen, who was in a different league for the majority of the season. But he had the better of Piastri and Hamilton and was forced to fight off a late attack from Perez’s Red Bull.

The Mexican recovered from his disappointing ninth place on the grid by employing an off-set strategy, beginning on the hard tyre rather than the medium utilized by the cars ahead of him, and gradually picking off the cars in front.

Perez closed in on Norris in the final ten laps, but after he was approximately three seconds behind, the McLaren began to pull away again in the closing laps.

Perez began to close the gap on Hamilton, but the Mercedes was still 1.5 seconds behind at the finish line.