How will Russell feel about Mercedes contract saga?

Lando Norris narrowed the Australian’s lead to nine points in the race for the drivers’ championship by leading a McLaren one-two at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Formula 1 will now take a summer break before hosting the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort on August 29 and 31.

BBC Sport F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions following the race at the Hungaroring.

After Oscar Piastri attempted to dive-bomb Lando Norris once more, will McLaren be privately concerned about the tense feud that is tarnishing the two drivers’ relationships? What can they say to both drivers to make them both happy, if applicable? – Jake

McLaren was pleased with the outcome of the Hungarian Grand Prix. They thought it best represented the philosophy they have adopted for their driver-to-drive team intra-team competition.

They are allowed to race each other, as long as they are fair – and that includes the possibility of divergent strategies to try to win a race that has been getting away from one or another.

Lando Norris did that in Hungary on Sunday. At the end of the first lap, Norris had to fight back from fifth place after finding himself in the wrong spots while trying to pass Oscar Piastri off the line.

He and engineer Will Joseph opted for a one-stop strategy that McLaren had not really considered would be a serious choice pre-race. In his final assignment, it gave him the track position over Piastri, and he did it flawlessly.

By allowing Piastri to have the best chance to defeat Norris within the bounds of the race’s duration, even to the point where it cost Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc track position, McLaren made every effort to give him the best chance to win.

But it did not work out for Piastri – he caught Norris with a few laps to go, but Norris had kept his tyres in decent shape and was able to fend his team-mate off.

A tense, fascinating race was born from it. More importantly, the radio transmissions, particularly those between Piastri and engineer Tom Stallard, showed how significant this conflict is to both drivers for the first time. Piastri claimed that he “didn’t care” about Leclerc.

Relations have been – and remain – so harmonious that it has sometimes been hard to appreciate the intensity of the title fight, how much it means to them, from the drivers ‘ public utterances. There was no doubt about it after reading this.

McLaren’s management was delighted, far from being concerned.

Chief executive officer Zak Brown described it as “an epic finish”.

When two outstanding drivers, like Lando and Oscar, compete for a title in a Formula 1 grand prix and compete for the drivers’ championship, it’s always going to be very close, according to team principal Andrea Stella on Sunday.

“But that was fair racing at the same time as that was firm racing.” It was definitely within our principles.

Oscar and I had a little lock-up, but Lando also left some room because he knew he would have to stop braking.

We continue to be extremely proud of our Lando and Oscar victories. This is a great way of honouring F1 racing. Even though we saw Ferrari compete for the victory for two-thirds of the race, these are the values of McLaren, and it will likely be a question between the two McLaren drivers.

It appears certain Mercedes will resign George Russell now that Max Verstappen will remain at Red Bull for the following year. Given how well he has driven this year, is there any way he might explain his feelings about he seemingly being seen as the second Max option? – Tom

In the weeks leading up to the Hungarian Grand Prix, Russell very clearly stated that he was not particularly happy with the way his contractual situation this year has been handled.

Mercedes manages and employs him both. He still gets to discuss his contract with Mercedes, but it means he has less leverage than he would in a more conventional arrangement.

Something that we need to consider, Russell said. What do I want and what do they want?

” We have been in a bit of a unique situation for the last few months. This agreement doesn’t really give me much power. And perhaps the last six months’ interests diverged.

“But it’s my job to perform and reduce that risk.

The team and Toto [Wolff] continue to support me, but the last six months haven’t been the most reassuring, and that is contradictory.

Next year, both Russell and Antonelli will continue to compete for Mercedes. It’s also clear that the same situation as arose this year could arise again next.

Is there a compelling reason why Aston Martin performed so much better in Hungary than it did in the past? Both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were significantly faster than the previous week. Stan

Aston Martin themselves were a little perplexed as to why their performance for the Hungarian Grand Prix had improved significantly.

After all, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were together on the back row of the grid in Belgium the week before, and there they were together on the third row in Hungary.

But really, there doesn’t seem to be that much of a mystery.

Alonso once said, “I would say that it’s track characteristics. We didn’t change the car massively since Spa, seven days ago. No one has any new parts. Simply put, the circuit’s characteristics seem to fit our car, not ours.

“It will be nice to understand why the car is operating in this sweet spot here, because if we understand that, we can use it in the next few races”.

Here, there are two things to consider. One is that Aston Martin had a positive outlook prior to Spa when it completed a significant upgrade at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in mid-May.

Alonso qualified fifth at Imola, seventh in Monaco, 10th in Spain, sixth in Canada, 11th in Austria and ninth at Silverstone.

In that context, not Hungary, but Spa should be taken off the rails.

The Aston Martin is a car that struggles on the straights, which is a result of poor aerodynamic performance. And two-thirds of Spa is straights. Much more corners are present in the Hungaroring.

Silverstone is a fast track, but Aston Martin ran an old-style floor at Spa, believing it would fit the track, which also caused the Eau Rouge bottoming issue.

This meant abandoning the new floor introduced at Silverstone for a previous-spec one introduced at Imola.

That might have contributed.

Alonso’s outstanding race on Sunday resulted in the same race result as Lando Norris’ one-stop strategy, which he used to secure his grid position in Hungary. And Stroll was less than 10 seconds behind in seventh.

It would seem logical to assume that Aston Martin’s performance will continue to fluctuate in line with track characteristics.

Does conducting investigations after a race is over hurt F1’s reputation? There is no other sport that I can think of where the outcome can change. – Martin

Following the race in Hungary, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton decided to investigate the incident, which is presumably a reference to this.

The FIA should have responded to numerous requests from teams and drivers in the past to thoroughly examine potentially contentious situations rather than make their own decisions during the race.

Take the controversy between Verstappen and Lando Norris in Austin last year. McLaren then argued that before making a decision, stewards should have heard both drivers’ opinions.

The stewards in Hungary made the decision to do that.

As it turned out, Hamilton did not turn up for the hearing. Verstappen once said, “I don’t think Lewis actually felt a lot for it because, of course, he’s in the stewards’ room, right? “

That’s just one little thing, I believe, because neither of us had the best weekend in the world.

Of course, it may also have been that Hamilton did not turn up because he was in a bad mood after a difficult weekend and he didn’t fancy arguing the toss over an incident that would make no difference to the result of his race.