Lewis Hamilton looks for a chance to pressure Antonelli as F1 title race comes to Hungary

Lewis Hamilton has a chance to pile pressure on Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes as the Formula 1 race heads to Hungary.

Hamilton has won the Hungarian Grand Prix eight times, making it his most successful event besides his home British Grand Prix. It's a track where cornering ability, not raw power, tends the make the difference, which could suit his Ferrari.

“I think we’ve got a car that can compete. Mercedes is still the car to beat, and they won’t be easy to beat this weekend, but I do think we’ve made subtle progress. Hopefully we can be fighting with them this weekend," Hamilton said Thursday.

It's the last race before F1's annual mid-season break, and the next race won't be until the Dutch Grand Prix on Aug. 23.

“Still a lot of work to do, still a mountain to climb in the second half of the season, but I’m more focused than ever and really believe that we can fight," Hamilton said.

After the last race ended with celebrations for one Mercedes star and rancor from the other, this week in Hungary is a test of whether Formula 1's top team can stay united.

Antonelli almost doubled his lead to 45 points over Hamilton, and 50 over teammate George Russell, with a win in Belgium last week after Hamilton sent Russell spinning off the track on the opening lap.

Russell vented his frustration in an expletive-filled radio message asking Mercedes why he'd suddenly lost speed and dropped behind Hamilton, forcing him into a risky overtake.

Russell has indicated that speed loss was down to a “software bug” that the team now believes it has fixed.

After one race where mysterious software issues played an outsize role, expect Hungary to be a more traditional race, though maybe not an exciting one.

It’s a slow, winding layout with plenty of places where the cars can recover electrical energy under braking.

Belgium was the opposite, with long straights which left cars running out of charge and amplified the slightest differences in how and when electrical energy kicks in.

Drivers don't directly control how much electrical power they use and Belgium highlighted just how much they're at the mercy of the algorithms controlling how the energy is deployed at various points around the circuit.

Asked if he sometimes felt like a passenger, McLaren's Oscar Piastri said: “Sometimes, yes. Again, at a track like Spa or a track like Silverstone, it’s going to be worse.”

He added: “Here, I really don’t expect there to be many problems at all with that kind of thing, because the straights are so much shorter, so even if there are differences, they should be a lot less. But the principle of driving a race car that loses effectively half of its power before the end of the straight is hard to get your head around sometimes.”

Budapest has traditionally hosted processional races with few obvious places to overtake. Sunday's race will be a test of whether the 2026-specification cars and their battery-boosted overtaking can bring an often-dull race to life.

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli, of Italy, walks in the paddock ahead of Sunday's Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix auto race, at the Hungaroring racetrack in Mogyorod, near Budapest, Hungary, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton, of Britain, talks to the media ahead of Sunday's Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix auto race, at the Hungaroring race track in Mogyorod, near Budapest, Hungary, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military shot and killed four Palestinians in the village of Tell in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Friday, raising tensions in the occupied territory after an Israeli settler was killed in a confrontation with local residents.

Two other Israelis and four more Palestinians were wounded, health officials said, and the Israeli military announced it was preparing for an “extensive” counterterror operation in the West Bank.

The exact circumstances of the incident remained unclear. But Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials suggested a group of settlers entered Tell on Friday morning and were confronted by residents who were fearful of an attack.

According to the Israeli military, one of the residents took one of the settlers' weapons and fired on the group, killing Benayahu Mellet, 32, a security guard in a settlement nearby.

In a video of the incident, confirmed by the Israeli military and circulated online by the military correspondent for Israel's Army Radio, two armed men in civilian clothing, as well as at least one Israeli soldier, are shown pointing their weapons at a group of Palestinians who had gathered in a field.

At one point, the two armed men rush toward several Palestinian residents with their guns drawn. In the footage, the residents try to push them back and appear to disarm one of the men before opening fire.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it killed the man who took the settler's weapon and that he was armed when soldiers shot him. But a separate video, published by Israeli media outlets and confirmed by the military, showed Israeli forces firing on a group of Palestinians in the same field who were already on the ground.

More than a dozen gunshots can be heard in the footage, which is less than a minute long. The military said the suspect was one of the people killed in the field. It did not respond to questions about why soldiers killed the other men — all of whom were related — or how long after the original altercation the killings took place.

Later, army chief Eyal Zamir said he was sending more troops to the occupied West Bank, where soldiers have encircled Tell and the nearby city of Nablus.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said Israel would “act forcefully” following the incident.

People mourn as the bodies of four Palestinians who, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, were killed by Israeli forces near the village of Tell, arrive at Nablus Speciality Hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

People mourn over the body of Jawad Ramadan, who, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, was killed by Israeli forces near the village of Tell, after his body was brought to Nablus Speciality Hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)