F1 Hungarian GP: Hamilton and Verstappen resume title duel – live!

There’s another race going on very soon of course, but it’ll only take a few seconds, so dash back:

The rain is now tipping down as the anthem is played.

Christian Horner has been expanding on Verstappen having to change his engine this morning. After starting with an expression of condolence to the family and friends of the marshal who died at Brands Hatch yesterday. Horner told Sky that the engine was shown to their team in Japan for visual checks after Red Bull noticed a crack had appeared in the engine after running yesterday. “It’s another consequence of the incident at Silverstone,” said the Red Bull supremo. “We’ve had to replace it with another power unit – there’s no grid penalty here but it does make life tough to stay within three power units for the rest of the season. It’s repairable but we certainly couldn’t run it here today.”

Rain is expected in 15 minutes’ time, we’re told. Hamilton’s a master of the wet of course.

Here’s a reminder of yesterday’s qualifying shenanigans with our man in Hungary, Giles Richards:

Lewis Hamilton executed with sublime precision to take pole for the Hungarian Grand Prix but the Mercedes driver received a blunt and boorish reception by some fans for his efforts. Red Bull accused him of gamesmanship and he was booed as he climbed from his car at the Hungaroring after a qualifying session in Budapest that will have done little to ease the tension between the two teams. The title is on a knife edge and tempers, too, are being tested.

Verstappen’s been bigging up his huge Dutch following at the Hungaroring. “It’s great to see such support.” His pithy assessment of the challenge ahead: “I need to break a bit later into turn one.” A slightly chirpier response than his “Can we already stop about this? We have had so many ****ing questions about this.” yesterday when asked about the Silverstone crash.

Lewis Hamilton has been speaking to Sky about his bid to win his 100th race. “I can remember the dream of just getting one so am very grateful and happy,” he said, “I was talking to my garage earlier about hall the special people I’ve had the pleasure of working with, its’ a testament to teamwork.” On today’s challenge, with his teammate Bottas on different tyres, he added: “The weather is windy, and holding the two behind at the start will be key but it won’t be the end of the world if we lose those positions as our tyres can go longer. Valtteri did an amazing job yesterday to get second”.

Here’s how they line up on the grid:

1 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes 2 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Mercedes 3 Max Verstappen (Ned) Red Bull 4 Sergio Perez (Mex) Red Bull 5 Pierre Gasly (Fra) Scuderia AlphaTauri 6 Lando Norris (Gbr) McLaren 7 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari 8 Esteban Ocon (Fra) Alpine 9 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Alpine 10 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Aston Martin 11 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) McLaren 12 Lance Stroll (Can) Aston Martin 13 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Alfa Romeo Racing 1:17.564, 14 Antonio Giovinazzi (Ita) Alfa Romeo Racing 15 Carlos Sainz Jr (Spa) Ferrari. 16 Yuki Tsunoda (Jpn) Scuderia AlphaTauri 17 George Russell (Gbr) Williams 18 Nicholas Latifi (Can) Williams 19 Nikita Mazepin (Raf) Haas F1 20 Mick Schumacher (Ger) Haas F No Time Set

Well, we’ve got ourselves a world title race, and a feisty one at that. What a few weeks ago was looking like a fairly frictionless glide to the title for Max Verstappen and Red Bull is now a proper dogfight. Lewis Hamilton’s contentious win at Silverstone has reignited the the seven-times champion’s campaign, as well as sparking beef between Mercedes and Red Bull to match that of the Lions and Springboks in South Africa.

And Verstappen’s unhappiness at the manner in which he crashed out of the British Grand Prix was compounded by a tetchy qualifying session yesterday, with Hamilton claiming pole and Red Bull accusing Mercedes of gamesmanship for going too slowly on their out lap and backing up their rivals. Hamilton was having none of it, claiming “those making the comments really don’t know anything about the job we are doing here”. But they copped some boos from the crowd to stoke things further.

Still, Hamilton likes it at the Hungaroring, having won here seven times, including the past three races here. He won from pole last year, pipping Verstappen and his teammate Valtteri Bottas to top spot on the podium. The two Mercedes drivers are in the front row today and an enticing race awaits. Bring it.

Lights out 2pm BST.