How Haas' common sense faltered to F1’s letter of the law

The controversial strategy call to pit both Haas cars on the Hungarian Grand Prix formation lap evoked memories of an often-cited piece of F1 folklore, but the penalty it later drew comes as a warning that such magic moments could be wiped out in future.

Alex Kalinauckas Jul 22, 2020, 3:34 PM

Upd: Jul 22, 2020, 3:55 PM

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Formula 1 fans remember the name Markus Winkelhock. And with good reason.

At the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, the German driver made his only F1 start in a race that featured catastrophic rain - as evidenced by the cars flying off the road in the early stages. But he also made history by leading the race for his Spyker squad, and did so because of a pitstop call to change tyres on the formation lap.

Thirteen years ago, Winkelhock was swapping slick rubber for intermediates. Last weekend at the Hungaroring, the two Haas drivers - Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean - took slicks after initially lining up on extreme wet tyres and inters respectively.

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Author Alex Kalinauckas

Alex Kalinauckas is Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, covering every Formula 1 race since the start of 2020. After completing a master's degree in journalism at Goldsmiths College University of London in 2014, he worked for a range of motorsport and technology publications while covering national racing as an Autosport freelancer.

A lifelong motorsport fan - no one in his family can explain quite how or why such a development first occurred - Alex joined the Autosport staff in April 2017 as the magazine’s Assistant Editor covering Formula 2 and GP3, before being made Formula E correspondent and Autosport.com’s Plus Editor in March 2018. He lives in north-east London and is constantly frustrated by the Central Line.