Lewis Hamilton was flawless on Sunday as he won the Hungarian Grand Prix from pole for Mercedes to claim a record equalling eighth top spot at one race and go top in the Formula One championship.
Hamilton was imperious on a drying track under dark Budapest clouds as more rain threatened but didn't fall and he coasted to an 86th career victory and second of the season.
The Briton - who lapped both Ferraris - triumphed ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen who finished second despite a crash on his way to the grid and starting from seventh. Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes was third.
Hamilton's eight wins at the Hungaroring since a first one in 2007 draw him level with former great Michael Schumacher who won the French GP eight times.
Hamilton is now just five grands prix wins away from Schumacher's leading 91 and he can also emulate the German if he wins a seventh world title.
He tops the standings with 64 points from three races thanks to his second win in a row, six ahead of Bottas.
‘It was one of my favourite races. I was on my own but we had great pace and a perfect strategy. The last two races have been fantastic for me and we need to keep it up,’ Hamilton said.
Verstappen said: ‘The mechanics did an amazing job to fix the car. To pay them back with second place - I was pleased with that. To be able to split the two Mercedes is good for us.’ Hamilton won the start ftrom pole as Bottas made a mess of it and slipped from second to sixth, with Verstappen shooting from seventh to third after his mechanics somehow managed to fix the car in some 15 minutes after he skidded into the barriers in then still wet conditions while on his way to the grid.
But on a rapidly drying track the drivers swiftly came into the pits to change their indermediate tyres for dry-weather slicks.
Once all the top drivers had fresh rubbers Hamilton remained top ahead of Verstappen while Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel lost precious seconds when he couldn't be released from the pits because of traffic.
Also still in the mix were Haas drivers Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean who switched from full wets to slicks right at the start.
Leclerc was the only one with soft tyres which degraded quicker and he eventually was passed by Red Bull's Alex Albon - who impressively fought back from 13th on the grid - and Vettel, with no incident between the two Ferrari drivers this time around after Leclerc shunted into Vettel a week ago.
It was gamble by Ferrari as more rain was forecast but that eventually never materialised and a second round of pit stops followed at around the halfway mark of the 70-lap race.
Despite upgrades, Lecelerc and Vettel were lapped by Hamilton who cruised more than 20 seconds ahead of Verstappen who soon had Bottas breathing down his neck.
The Finn then pitted a third time for fresh rubbers which gave Verstappen some respite before he also held off a late Bottas charge.
Hamilton was also told to pit late on and managed to convince his team to get soft rather than hard tyres for the final three laps - then setting the fastest lap for one extra championship point and beating Vertappen by almost nine seconds despite one stop more than the Dutchman.
