Updated

Updated · The Race · Jul 27

Gasly Tops Edd Straw's 22-Driver Hungarian GP Rankings as Norris Wins but Places Third

Updated

Updated · The Race · Jul 27

Gasly Tops Edd Straw's 22-Driver Hungarian GP Rankings as Norris Wins but Places Third

Q: How did a catastrophic gearbox failure actually boost a driver's ranking above those who successfully crossed the finish line?

The gearbox failure helped Oscar Piastri’s ranking because Edd Straw’s list judged performance, not survival to the chequered flag. Piastri retired, but before the failure he had already shown enough high-level execution to rate above several finishers who simply extracted less from their cars. That included a strong recovery from a poor qualifying result and a race in which he fought back into a genuine winning position. He had the pace to challenge at the front, managed the race well in traffic and tyre-sensitive conditions, and was still being assessed on how close he got to the McLaren’s maximum potential. The retirement was treated as bad luck rather than a driver-caused failure. By contrast, drivers who finished were marked down if they left performance on the table through mistakes, penalties or weaker overall pace. That is why some classified finishers ranked lower than Piastri: crossing the line was less important than delivering a cleaner, faster and more complete weekend. The same logic explains other unusual placements in the rankings. Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly scored highly because they maximised limited machinery, while Carlos Sainz and Ollie Bearman fell down the order despite running to the finish because incidents and errors damaged their weekends. In Straw’s system, a retirement caused by a mechanical failure does not automatically hurt a driver as much as underperforming in a car that could have done more.

Q: Was a hidden GPS glitch truly to blame for the controversial crash that sent Carlos Sainz plummeting down the leaderboard?

No. The GPS-related blue-flag glitch was a contributing factor, but the available evidence does not support it as the sole or decisive cause of the Carlos Sainz–Oscar Piastri collision. Sainz’s explanation was that the steering-wheel blue-light warning was not working because of a wider GPS communication problem, and that he was focused on battling Fernando Alonso when Piastri arrived in his blind spot. That account is partly backed by race reports: the electronic blue-flag system was disrupted, some warnings were unreliable, and the usual dashboard alert was unavailable. But the counter-evidence is strong. Piastri said marshal light panels were still showing blue flags, and multiple reports said Sainz had also been warned by his Williams team that Piastri was approaching. The FIA stewards explicitly found Sainz “wholly responsible” for the contact. They did not reduce the penalty because of the GPS failure; they reduced it from the standard 10 seconds to five because Piastri was judged not to have been visible in Sainz’s mirrors at the critical moment, which limited culpability. So the hidden system fault helps explain why Sainz’s awareness was compromised, but it does not clear him. The official view was that he still should have managed the blue-flag situation, and Piastri’s criticism rested on exactly that point. In practical terms, the glitch was part of the backdrop, not the full excuse.

2 articles · Updated · The Race · Jul 27

Pierre Gasly was ranked best performer of the Hungarian Grand Prix after qualifying 12th and finishing 12th, with Straw judging he extracted the maximum from Alpine and clearly outperformed Franco Colapinto.
Nico Hulkenberg placed second and Lando Norris third in a surprise top three, with Straw rewarding Hulkenberg’s near-maximized Audi weekend and docking race winner Norris for mistakes and a slice of fortune.
Max Verstappen ranked fourth after taking Red Bull to second place despite a Q3 spin, while Oscar Piastri was fifth even though he retired, reflecting Straw’s emphasis on weekend performance over finishing result.
At the bottom of the 22-driver list were Carlos Sainz and Ollie Bearman, with Sainz punished for colliding with Piastri and Bearman marked down for race errors on top of Haas’s car troubles.
The rankings assess all 22 drivers from best to worst across the full weekend—pace, racecraft, consistency, mistakes and car potential—so they can diverge sharply from the official race classification.

Sources

The Race25d ago

Edd Straw Reveals 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix F1 Driver Rankings

shows.acast.com25d ago

Hungarian GP: How Norris and McLaren surprised themselves with victory - The Race F1 Podcast | Acast

How did driving the grid's weakest cars propel two midfield racers past world champions in the latest post-race evaluations?

How did a catastrophic gearbox failure actually boost a driver's ranking above those who successfully crossed the finish line?

Was a hidden GPS glitch truly to blame for the controversial crash that sent Carlos Sainz plummeting down the leaderboard?

Sources

2 total

The Race25d ago

Edd Straw Reveals 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix F1 Driver Rankings

shows.acast.com25d ago

Hungarian GP: How Norris and McLaren surprised themselves with victory - The Race F1 Podcast | Acast

Gasly Tops Edd Straw's 22-Driver Hungarian GP Rankings as Norris Wins but Places Third

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