He gave everything he could to keep behind standings leader. Fans pumped him for all the 70 laps. But in the end Max Verstappen had to fold to Lewis Hamilton with 3 laps to go: a sore pill to swallow for a deserved win left to the contender but a solid race shown; if it could have claimed the win, he could have been the second driver in championship, contending the battle with the Brit. Moreover, now that the weak point of starting cold have been solved, Verstappen claims to be considered into the roster of contenders for the second half of the season battles: if lack of power from Honda is filled, even high speed rounds such as Spa and Monza could be hunting grounds for Milton Keynes cars, being mechanical grip definitely achieved with today’s performance:

I gave it my all and we were close. Despite not winning, we had a good day and a great weekend 👊🏻 We will keep working hard to improve #KeepPushing #HungarianGP 🇭🇺 pic.twitter.com/oOlCOHHf5a

— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) August 4, 2019

We gave it our all but Lewis was clearly a bit faster than us today. It was nice to see that we had such a big gap to the others though and second is still a good result. It wasn’t our day in terms of pace but overall it was a good weekend and getting pole position was a great step. Of course, when you start at the front you want to win but you also have to be realistic and to finish second with the fastest lap was the most that we could do. I tried to keep Lewis behind when we were on the same tyres but because of the gap to third, he had the option to do a second stop which worked out for him. I was trying to survive out front and push on my tyres but when he was closing in by one or two seconds per lap there wasn’t much I could do. He closed so quickly on the fresh tyres that I wasn’t surprised he managed to get past

The Hungarian GP may have been dull beside for the Hamilton-Verstappen fight over victory. Nevertheless a key role was played by strategies. Sweat has been flooding off the pitwall crews' foreheads in many of the teams for the entirety of the race

Another poor performance for teammate Gasly: a 6^th place got with a good start and an overtake to Hulkenberg could mean to be a good race result. But with nearly 2” slower in the best lap with the Dutchman and compared to the same place earned in 2018 with a modest Toro Rosso loses some of the gratification deserved. Obviously, Frenchman is in the middle of a mind-boggling tunnel where light still doesn’t show up: at this point of season being confirmed for the rest of it doesn’t sound as good insurance for 2020; the words of Toto Wolff on deciding who to keep beside Hamilton between Bottas and Ocon could be replicated by Red Bull entourage, who knows. What everyone remembers is the extremely dangerous results that a pressurised driver can deliver (Kvyat in the first phase with Red Bull in 2016); Marko and Horner should take on their own responsibilities:

It was a difficult race right from the beginning. We had a poor start which didn’t make life easy, and after that I just tried to attack as much as I could but I was sliding everywhere and struggling with grip. I was in a bit of a sandwich in Turn 1, then I was quite close with Kimi in Turn 2 so I lost a lot of time at the start which didn’t help my race. The weekend started pretty well and Friday was good, we were happy with FP1 and FP2, but from Saturday I have just struggled for grip. We finished the race P6 and scored some points but for sure it was not the amount we wanted. It’s good for everyone to have a break now and switch off. I will relax and review the first half of the season, I will look at what went well and what could have been better so I come back sharper and stronger for the second half and make sure we score more points