Jeremy Clarkson fumes after wind-affected Hungarian GP: "Shouldn't be a factor in sport"

Former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson fumed after the wind-affected Hungarian Grand Prix, claiming that "breeze shouldn't be a factor in sport."

McLaren has dominated the 2025 Formula 1 season so far with a 299-point lead over second-placed Ferrari at the point of the summer break. The Woking outfit has accumulated 11 grand prix wins and one sprint race victory so far this year.

The strong form looked to continue in Hungary with Lando Norris topping the timesheets in the first two practice sessions and Oscar Piastri taking top spot in the third. But, when it came to the all-important qualifying, it was Charles Leclerc who stole pole position after wind hampered the McLarens.

“Look at Formula 1 motor racing. We’ve reached a point now where six drivers in six different cars can be separated by less than a tenth of a second, and the winner is the one whose car is least affected by whatever breeze happens to be blowing at turn six that day," Clarkson argued in a column for The Sunday Times. "Breeze shouldn’t be a factor in sport, for God’s sake.”

Piastri explained after the qualifying session, when he secured the second spot on the starting grid, that the wind changed between Q2 and Q3.

"It always sounds so pathetic blaming things on the wind, but the wind basically did a 180 from Q2 to Q3 and just meant a lot of the corners felt completely different," the Australian driver told the media.

"Difficult to judge in those conditions and maybe not the best execution, but I was a bit surprised that we couldn’t go quicker than that."

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Norris reported similar issues to his team-mate, stating: "Charles did a good job on the last lap, [he] probably risked a little bit more in these conditions.

"The conditions changed a lot and really seemed to punish us in a bigger way. Not too many complaints, we thought we both did some good laps at the end and we were just slow, so nothing to complain of but Charles did a good job."

Norris went on to celebrate the victory in Budapest, closing the gap to championship leader Piastri to just nine points going into the summer break.