Valtteri Bottas, Lance Stroll trigger huge pile-up at Hungarian GP

Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll caused a multiple car pile-up at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix, which eliminated multiple cars and relegated championship leader Max Verstappen down the order.

The race started in wet conditions, with drivers on the intermediate tyre. Lewis Hamilton led comfortably away from pole position but a sluggish start from his teammate Valtteri Bottas in second position saw the second Mercedes drops to fifth on the run down to Turn 1.

Bottas then appeared to misjudge the lack of grip at Turn 1 and slid into the back of McLaren’s Lando Norris, who then in turn was a passenger as his car careered into Verstappen. By this point Bottas was completely out of control and took out Sergio Perez as well.

Further back, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll tried to avoid the chaos by going straight across the corner at Turn 1, but ended up hitting Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who in turn spun Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren.

Bottas and Stroll’s cars were both terminally damaged, while Leclerc and Perez were also unable to continue.

Bryn Lennon/Getty Images

The race was quickly red-flagged, giving the teams a chance to repair their cars in the pit-lane.

During this delay in the race, Leclerc tweeted: “Nice bowling game. So frustrating”.

McLaren later confirmed Norris would not make the restart due to damage sustained in the incident.

The accidents left a wildly mixed up grid for the restart.

While Hamilton remained in first position, behind him were Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda.

Williams pair Nicholas Latifi and George Russell will both restart the race in the top ten, as will Haas driver Mick Schumacher.

Verstappen will be 13th at the restart.