A surprisingly eventful Hungarian GP

Formula 1 sailed into its summer break with a surprisingly eventful Hungarian Grand Prix that ended in Lando Norris scoring his first victory of the season. The reigning world champion looked unbeatable throughout the Budapest weekend, but he did get a little help after a collision between early race leader Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz.

Piastri was trying to lap Sainz but the Williams driver did not see the McLaren and was subsequently given a five-second time penalty — one that raised a few eyebrows given the same punishment is routinely handed out for far lesser infringements.

Why was Sainz's penalty only five seconds?

The typical penalty applied to drivers for causing a collision is 10 seconds. But where there are "mitigating circumstances," in the eyes of the stewards, that can be reduced. We recently saw that at Spa when Lewis Hamilton only received five seconds for a first-lap clash with George Russell. For Sainz, the stewards stated that the "limited visibility reduced the degree of culpability," combined with the fact the blue flag system wasn't working properly.

But it's a pretty flimsy argument, writes The Athletic's Luke Smith. Even if Sainz had limited visibility of Piastri in his blind spot on the outside of Turn 2, he was being lapped — and it is absolutely the responsibility of the driver and his team to be aware of lead traffic coming through. Per the stewards' document, Sainz had been informed by his team of the blue flags, so there was really no excuse. "And what if Piastri and Sainz had been fighting for position? There is no way that the 'limited visibility' argument would have held up, and it surely would have been a 10-second penalty. A very strange ruling."

Russell's latest start-line misery

George Russell endured another miserable race after start-line trouble, serving another dent to his title hopes as Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli extended his points lead over him to 59 points with a smartly-taken podium finish. Russell said he "was on the throttle holding the revs" when, "all of a sudden, about four seconds before the lights went out, the engine just started revving all over the place. I was reacting with my throttle, and it was doing nothing. The engine wasn't reacting to the throttle."

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said Sunday: "It seems another problem happened to George. It looks like that he gave about 10 percent throttle, and the whole thing revved maximum. He went off the throttle, and it bogged down. So I'm really not happy about too many mistakes that happen."

It was just the latest issue Russell has faced this season, from a drive-through penalty in Monaco to engine failure in Canada and a collision with Hamilton in Belgium. "The race was totally ruined," Russell said about Hungary. "I did my procedure right at the start. Pace was fine. The result was s–t, but the things that I could have controlled, they were just okay. I usually don't feel like I need a break. This year, I definitely feel like I need one."

What's next for Williams?

Hungary was always expected to be a tricky track for Williams, given how wind-sensitive the car is. With Aston Martin taking a step forward after bringing its major chassis upgrade, it has only highlighted how far off the mark Williams is. Winter production delays put the team on the backfoot, and although Baku has been circled as a big moment with a notable upgrade package that's essentially a B-spec car, there's doubt it can remedy the issues.

"We know the weaknesses of the car," Alex Albon said after the Hungarian GP. "This year, the work that's been done at the factory, it's the biggest effort I've seen in the team... If it's cured by Baku, I doubt it." He added: "Unfortunately, it feels like Aston is going to be faster for the rest of the year now. We're going to be helped out by some circuits down the straights. But, otherwise, if it's a corner-focused circuit, we're going to be on the backfoot."

Are Cadillac getting worse?

Cadillac's first season was always going to be difficult to treat with any firm performance expectations — the team has been, to quote principal Graeme Lowdon, "building the plane while flying it." The most concerning recent issue has been reliability, chiefly due to problems with brake cooling. Valtteri Bottas retired due to brake overheating in Hungary.

"That is a really, really, really difficult area of a Formula 1 car to develop," Lowdon told reporters. "It's an area where know-how and intangible IP is really important. We're not allowed to get that from anywhere else, we can't take someone else's brake duct design. You have to do that learning and you have to do it in public as well with a few hundred million people watching."

The numbers, however, have been trending in the right direction against Williams. The fastest Cadillac was as much as 2.3 percent off the pace of the fastest Williams in Q1 at Miami, but in the last six races the gap has never been more than 1 percent, sitting at 0.7 percent for Silverstone and Spa and just 0.3 percent in Hungary. There are signs of progress — but with every lap precious at this early stage, Cadillac desperately needs to resolve the brake-cooling issue to ensure both cars finish more regularly.