LEWIS HAMILTON apologised for his poor start as Max Verstappen ran away with it in Hungary.
The Red Bull ace has now won seven on the spin to open up an incredible 110 point lead over his team-mate, Sergio Perez, who was third.
Lewis Hamilton never recovered from a dreadful start in which Max Verstappen overtook him and proceeded to dominate
Verstappen celebrates his 44th GP victory to boost his title lead
McLaren’s Lando Norris took another podium as he finished second while his team-mate Oscar Piasri continued to impress on his debut season by coming home in fifth.
Hamilton, who had started on pole position after a brilliant qualifying session on Saturday, was fourth – some 38 seconds behind winner Verstappen.
The Mercedes man was slow off the line and admitted the blame over the team’s radio as he was leapfrogged by Verstappen, Piastri and Norris.
Further back, Daniel Ricciardo was caught up in the thick of it as Zhou Guanyu slammed into his AlphaTauri man on his F1 return.
The impact sent both Alpines out of the race as the Oxfordshire-based team suffered a double DNF on the opening lap.
By lap 45, Hamilton was 33 seconds off Verstappen’s time, telling his race engineer “this is as fast as it goes”, when asked to up the pace.
Perez started cutting his way through the field from his ninth place on the grid and by lap 51 he’d climbed back to 51.
The Mexican started hunting down Norris, who became increasingly panicked, but the Brit managed to hold on for second.
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But he was still over 32 seconds behind Verstappen, who remains in a class of his own and looks on course to win the title in Austin Texas, with four races to spare.
Verstappen was cruising, so much so that his race engineer radioed him around 10 laps from the end, his reply was calm, “Yeah, all good,” he said.
It was the 12th consecutive win for Red Bull. Verstappen said: “What an unbelievable rocketship today. The car was so enjoyable to drive.”
Verstappen romped to a record 12th win in a row for Red Bull
