2025 F1 Hungarian GP: Preview and Predictions

The F1 Hungarian GP will be the last race before the carnival bids farewell ahead of the summer break. This will be the 14th race of the season, and with the championship still up for grabs, there is still quite an intrigue around what's going to happen.

With the silly season still up in the air, we're looking at quite a few talking points as we head to Hungaroring, with the most important one being Max Verstappen's future. There are quite a few strings attached to what he does next, but at the same time, whatever he does is going to trigger where everyone else goes.

With that being said, what can we expect from the 2025 F1 Hungarian GP? Let's take a look.

2025 F1 Hungarian GP: Preview

Key Storylines

#1 Max Verstappen's future being finalised

Helmut Marko has revealed that Max Verstappen is going to race at Red Bull for 2026. Since reports from Dutch publication The Telegraph have also confirmed the same, it would be interesting to see what the driver has to say now.

At the same time, the pieces at Mercedes would not fall in place, as Toto Wolff can now sign an extension with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. The question would, however, once again continue to be what the duration of these extensions is. The silly season still has quite a few moving parts, and it would be interesting to see if we see a few of them fall in place before the F1 Hungarian GP is done.

#2 The title battle

Oscar Piastri stretched the lead over Lando Norris to 16 points in the championship, and it should mean the Australian would arguably head to the summer break ahead of his teammate in the standings unless something goes wrong.

We're heading to the F1 Hungarian GP this weekend, the place where the win tally began for Oscar, and it would be interesting to see how he does this time around.

#3 The 'racing' debate

The 'racing' or the lack of it, became a discussion at Spa. The question, however, should have been around the length of the DRS, which was suspiciously kept shorter by the FIA, and the harder compound of tires brought by Pirelli.

For the F1 Hungarian GP, Pirelli is once again bringing the same set of tires it did last season, and hence the question would be around how durable they are and what kind of racing they yield.

Form Guide

In Form

The race weekend in Spa was a timely reminder from Charles Leclerc of what he's capable of in the car. The Ferrari driver nailed everything and extracted every droplet of performance from the car, and it faces an underwhelming weekend in Silverstone.

It's tough to have the spotlight on you when your teammate is Lewis Hamilton, but this season has shown that if Leclerc continues to perform the way he has, it will keep him in good stead within the team.

Out of Form

It's surprising to put his name here, but Max Verstappen is going through his worst no-podium run since 2019. The driver has not been on the podium for three races now, and one could argue that he has played a role in it as well.

He should have been on the podium in Silverstone, but his error in the race cost him. He should have done so in Spa as well, but the error in qualifying helped Leclerc to leapfrog him. The driver has had a decent run at the F1 Hungarian GP in the past, but he's also had some rough moments here as well. What we get this weekend is going to be interesting.

Driver with the biggest spotlight

Here's an astounding stat, Lewis Hamilton has as many wins at the F1 Hungarian GP as drivers like Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, and Charles Leclerc have in their careers. The driver has been brilliant around this track, with some of the most brilliant drives around this track coming even before he drove a dominant Mercedes.

At times this season, there have been excuses and reasons when he's explained why his form has not been the best compared to Charles Leclerc. The F1 Hungarian GP might just be the biggest litmus test for the driver, and there would be many, including the ones at Ferrari, who would be keeping an eye on the driver.

2025 F1 Hungarian GP: Predictions

Who wins the race?

McLaren dominated this race last season with both drivers, and this time around that car has only become better. Unless the duo have a coming together or horrible starts, which lead to compromised races, nothing is coming close to beating them.

If we have to pick between the McLaren duo on who gets on top, it's going to come down to the key moments in the race, which is especially the start. What we've seen until now is that Oscar Piastri tends to have an edge on Lando Norris when it comes to winning these small battles, and we're going to see a bit of it again this weekend.

For the F1 Hungarian GP, we're going with Oscar Piastri as our choice for the winner.

Biggest surprise of the weekend? (Team)

Ferrari might just be the biggest surprise this weekend because the current iteration of the car has shown some interesting strengths in the slow- to medium-speed ranges and tends to do well over the kerbs.

The F1 Hungarian GP tends to work well in that setting, and we could potentially see both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton become factors against the McLaren duo.

Biggest surprise of the weekend? (Driver)

Keep an eye on Lewis Hamilton during the F1 Hungarian GP. This is one of those tracks where, for some reason, the driver continued to do well in all conditions and all cars. He's never struggled here in general, and with a car that might have something in it, maybe this might be the race where he breaks his podium duck.

Biggest disappointment of the weekend? (Team)

A slow- to medium-speed track with aggressive bumps is not the kind of track that Red Bull essentially likes, and hence we might struggle to see a good run for the team around this track.

A podium might just be a step too far for the team and the drivers.

Biggest disappointment of the weekend? (Driver)

This might just be the last race of the season for Franco Colapinto. The Argentinian has been put in a very tough situation, and, unlike how he was quickly able to get on with things at Williams, he's found it hard to do that at Alpine for one reason or another.

The F1 Hungarian GP is arguably a make-it-or-break-it weekend for Franco, and we fear it's going to be the latter for the driver.

Edited by Charanjot Singh Kohli