'Kimi Antonelli's grip on F1 title is loosening after chaotic Hungarian GP'

In Budapest, Mercedes struggled for the first time behind both McLaren and Ferrari throughout the Hungarian GP weekend, and while Antonelli's impressive recovery drive after receiving a three-place grid penalty for a Qualifying yellow flag infringement did extend his championship lead, Lando Norris' victory in Budapest marks five different winners in five races.

Compare that with Antonelli's streak of five wins on the bounce in the races prior to Lewis Hamilton's Barcelona GP victory, the championship picture has undoubtedly changed, with Mercedes continuing to struggle for reliability while Ferrari and McLaren improve amid significant upgrades. Heading into the summer break, Antonelli does have one hand on the Drivers' title, but is that grip loosening? Hosts Jim and Ben take a look at the championship picture at the season's halfway point.

Elsewhere in the latest F1 Paddock Update, the chaos caused by a system malfunction related to blue flags at the Hungarian GP is another hot topic of discussion, with back-marker Carlos Sainz's controversial collision with Oscar Piastri a key talking point coming out of Budapest.

Battling with fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso at the back of the grid, Sainz, unaware of where Piastri was on the track, and without blue flags on his steering wheel, collided with the McLaren man and inadvertently handed the lead of the race to Norris.

Piastri, having retired early from the Grand Prix due to a gearbox failure later on in the race, was furious over the situation, telling GPblog and others: "I couldn't believe what happened. Getting crashed into by a lapped car is never one of the things you expect that can go wrong in your race and today it was. So I don't really care if he didn't see me. The fact that he didn't and no one told him or there was a lack of complete awareness is unacceptable."

Sainz, on the other hand, while sympathetic to Piastri, did not exactly offer an apology, instead arguing the Aussie should have been more cautious. Sainz said: "To be honest, I'm really sorry for Oscar, but this time I think I have a pretty good excuse to what happened.

Identifying mitigating circumstances during the incident, the stewards decided to hand a reduced five-second penalty to Sainz for the collision with Piastri, but was that the right decision - hosts Jim and Ben take a look on the latest episode!