Verstappen was fitted with a new engine for Sunday and had the problem not happened in qualifying, Christian Horner confirmed he wouldn’t have been able to race at all.

“We changed the power unit because there’s a component that broke in Max’s car yesterday,” Red Bull’s team boss explained.

“Thankfully, sitting here now with 20-20 hindsight, we’re grateful that it did break yesterday because [with] another 12 kilometres it would have broken on the way to the grid.

“So we elected to change the whole power unit rather than try a repair in the field. And as a precaution, we also changed Checo’s.”

Had the problem not struck on Saturday, we could be sat talking about Mercedes’ first one-two of the season.

 

Vettel for driver of the day, anyone?

What a topsy-turvy weekend it was for Vettel, who went from announcing his retirement, to crashing in final practice, to a points finish on Sunday.

Amid that was a Q1 exit which had him starting down in P18, from which a top ten result looked unlikely for the four-time world champion.

But after being the centre of attention in the build-up to the race, little of his advance into the points was shown on the live feed. His Sunday didn’t get off to the best of starts after Alex Albon went into the side of him at Turn 2 on the opening lap, but Vettel remained calm and showed patience to make his way up the field.

By lap 22 he was 15th and into the top 10 halfway. But with five laps to go, Vettel was back out of the points and in P11 with Lance Stroll in the way.

Team orders brought Aston Martin’s driver the final point and he could have even gone one better.

“We had to fight hard for a point today and we came close to a second point when I was chasing down Esteban [Ocon] in the final laps,” said Vettel.

“The team switched cars because I had a better opportunity to catch Esteban, but obviously the virtual safety car hurt us and we ran out of time. I was very close on the final lap, but I needed just one more corner to make a move.

“It was a fun race with lots of fights and overtakes.”

 

Nicholas Latifi topped his first-ever F1 practice session

Yes, that is right: Latifi really was the fastest man in the final practice session.

With the rain pouring at the start of FP3, the track then began to dry towards the end and drivers started to set faster lap times.

The final man of all to cross the line was Latifi, with a 1min 41.480sec lap, which was over half a second quicker than Leclerc in second.

“Even before going P1 I was feeling quite good,” said Latifi. “It wasn’t by fluke, everyone was doing lap times at the same times, at the same track conditions, so we’re obviously getting something right as a team there.

“And I’m clearly not a bad driver, I mean you still have to drive the car in the wet and it is still very difficult to drive, so it was a nice moral victory for sure, moral boost.”

 

What happened to Tsunoda?

With his spot on the 2023 grid not yet fully confirmed, Yuki Tsunoda can’t afford to have many more days like he had in Hungary.

Coming home in P19, he was last of all the finishers, a minute behind Latifi – who even had front-wing damage – and the only driver to get lapped twice.

He had various warnings for track limits and spun on lap 35. After the race, he complained that he had no grip throughout. So a day to forget for Tsunoda, who has now not finished inside the points since the Spanish GP in May.

 

What it all means for the championship

After squandering yet another opportunity to close the gap to Red Bull, Ferrari now needs to look over its shoulder with Mercedes closing in.

Despite a problematic start to the season, the Silver Arrows trails Ferrari by just 30 points in the championship.

On top of that, Lewis Hamilton has now stood on the podium more times this season [6] than Leclerc [5], despite the Monégasque being Verstappen’s closest challenger.

Although Ferrari arguably has the quickest car on the grid, will it waste that and finish third in the standings?