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Summer Blast at F1’s Hungaroring

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Posted on July 17, 2024 Tags:



Spa de Francorchamps next up

Scramble for seats at F1 halfway point

Despite those recent much publicised contract negotiations, Red Bull’s senior advisor Helmut Marko is adamant Sergio Perez’ recent horrible form must end tout de suite before the holidays.

It seems there’s a clause in the Mexican’s contract which stipulates he must achieve a certain number of championship points by a given date!

And that number is believed to be considerably more than the 118 he has, sitting 6th after Silverstone.

A lot of to-ing and fro-ing

It is somewhat difficult to consider the likeable Stake F1 driver Zhou Guanyu missing out, given the power behind the extreme might of the China bloc.

Guanyu is, after all, the first and only Chinese driver to have started a Formula One World Championship race so far.

Sergio, Daniel and Liam

Oscar and Mark

Mark has shown exceptional skill as a talent scout because Oscar has already proven to be a serious real deal.

F1 Teams Winding Down for Summer Break

Meanwhile, Red Bull has brought updates with them to this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, this weekend, aiming to push the RB20 “a step forward again.”

Mercedes have come out on top at each of the last two races this season, courtesy of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris coming to grief in Austria – the first time the Dutchman has gone two consecutive races without victory since the 2022 British and Austrian Grands Prix!

Hungaroring – Bernie’s Baby

Bernie Ecclestone – F1 Guru

Back in 1986, the Hungaroring made history by hosting the first Formula One Grand Prix behind the then shaky Iron Curtain.

The legendary Bernie Ecclestone – the mastermind behind F1 – originally wanted a race in the USSR, but instead settled for Budapest. A wise move, indeed.

Nestled just outside the city, near a major highway and the town of Mogyoród, the Hungaroring was born. It sits in a picturesque valley, surrounded by greenery.

The circuit was constructed in a just eight months – the quickest of any other Formula One track.  

Hungaroring, Mogyoród, Pest County, Hungary

Hungary’s Fan-Friendly Hungaroring

This Week’s Forecast

This weekend’s event is happening smack in the middle of the current central European summer – with scorching sun, shimmering asphalt, and drivers pushing their magnificent machines to the absolute limit.  

And that overheating around the Hungaroring, Pirelli suggests, is a serious factor that needs to be kept under control during the race, especially in qualifying:

It boasts 14 corners, six to the left and eight to the right, some of them being 180° turns, giving the drivers no time to take a breather over the 70-lap race distance.

The track climbs and drops and its 4.381km make it one of the shortest on the calendar.

There are two DRS zones: one on the start-finish straight and the other much shorter on the descent from turn 1 to 2, with just the one detection zone before the entry into the final corner.

Pirelli chooses softest compounds

Although degradation can be high, especially when it is very hot – which is the forecast for this week.

On the softest compound a driver must manage to get to the last two 180° corners of a flying lap with enough grip left, which is no mean feat, as the short straight sections of track don’t give the tyres much time to breathe.

While the 4.381-kilometer Hungaroring is a permanent racetrack, it doesn’t get much use, which is why grip levels increase significantly the more it gets rubbered-in.  

That will be even more likely this year as there’s been no track activity for a longer time than usual while the facility was modernised, the first phase of which was only completed in May.

Overtaking no easy Task

To meet the schedule deadline, 400-500 people worked on site at any time – 24 hours a day – with more than 1500 people involved in the project.

Four tower cranes and five mobile ones were used, installing 390 kilometres of piping, 3200 tonnes of reinforced steel, 1674 cubic metres of reinforced pre-cast concrete and 32,000 tonnes of concrete.

The work involved moving 17,000 cubic metres of earth and the new paddock now covers an area of 8000 square metres.

Five drivers have taken their maiden F1 wins at the Hungaroring, two of whom – Fernando Alonso (2003) and Esteban Ocon (2021) – are on the entry list this weekend. The others are Damon Hill (1993), Jenson Button (2006) and Heikki Kovalainen (2008).



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