Lewis Hamilton was left apologising to his Mercedes team for a poor start that saw him give up the race lead to Max Verstappen.
Hamilton stunned the crowd at the Hungarian Grand Prix by taking his first pole position since Saudi Arabia in 2021, but he lost the place by turn one on race day.
Championship leader Verstappen blasted past him and took the inside line into the first corner, forcing Hamilton and Lando Norris wide as Oscar Piastri capitalised to jump from fourth to second.
Piastri’s gain was Hamilton’s loss, and the seven-time champion took responsibility on team radio after the event.
“Sorry about that guys,” he said before his race engineer, Peter Bonnington, replied: “Don’t sweat it Lewis, it’s going to be a long hot race.”
Mercedes were certainly gutted to see Hamilton go from first to fourth in a matter or corners, but at least they weren’t Alpine.
The team, who now have Ryan Reynolds as a co-owner, lost both of their drivers on the first lap.
Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu had a terrible start from his career-best qualifying position of fifth, dropping back and then mistiming his breaking at the first corner, colliding with Esteban Ocon.
Ocon was sent spinning into teammate Pierre Gasly, taking both Alpines out of the Grand Prix.
Zhou was given a five-second penalty for the incident, but Alpine will be left fuming, having sacked CEO Laurent Rossi ahead of the race for a poor start to the season.
