Time to visit 'Monaco without walls'
The Hungaroring isn't a street track, but it's said to be as difficult as one.
Did you know they had Formula 1 races behind the Iron Curtain? They did! In 1986, at the Hungaroring in Mogyoród, Hungary, they held the first F1 race behind the Iron Curtain. The Hungaroring is still hosting F1 races today—in fact, it’s the location of this weekend’s 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Hungaroring was built for that first race in 1986, and has hosted an F1 race every year since. It’s held in the middle of the summer, when it’s insanely hot and dry, making the race its own kind of physical challenge. It’s tight corners and twisty nature earned it the name “Monaco without the walls” and it’s difficult to overtake on track. Regardless, it’s had a lot of legendary races and is loved by the drivers, being compared to a karting track by a lot of them.
This isn’t a home race for anyone, but it does have many, many storylines going! This is where Max Verstappen pulled off his P10 to P1 ‘spin to win’ last year. If Lewis Hamilton wins on Sunday, he’ll have 9 wins at the Hungarian Grand Prix, which will move him one ahead of Michael Schumacher for the record of most wins at a single grand prix. Daniel Ricciardo returns to the grid on the same track on which he got his second win ever. There’s so much going on everywhere you look, there’s going to be no shortage of excitement this race!
As I said, last year Max Verstappen won the race from P10, but this isn’t his best circuit historically. This is, however, a great circuit for Lewis Hamilton, so… maybe? The Hungaroring has corners of all speeds, but the most common medium-speed corners, of which there are four. At Silverstone, Mclaren were strongest in the medium-fast speed corners while Red Bull were strongest in the medium-slow speed corners. So, will Mclaren be good here this weekend, despite what they’ve been saying in the lead up? We’ll see!
Hungarian GP quick facts:
Held 38 times
The record for most driver wins is 8, held by Lewis Hamilton
The record for most constructor wins is Mclaren with 11
The race is 70 laps long
The lap record is 1:16.627, set by Lewis Hamilton in 2020
In 2022, Max Verstappen won from P10 on the grid, even though he had a 360-spin in the middle of the race. The podium was completed with a Mercedes 2-3 with Lewis Hamilton in 2nd and George Russell in 3rd. Lewis got the fastest lap.
We have a new F1 experiment this weekend! The new qualifying was meant to be run at Imola, but since that race was cancelled, this will be the first race where the format is attempted. It’ll happen again in Monza, too.
There are less sets of tires available this weekend, down to 11 from the usual 13. This means there’ll be 3 sets of hards, 4 sets of mediums, and 4 sets of softs. The change in qualifying is that certain tires are required during the sections. Teams are required to run hards in Q1, mediums in Q2, and softs in Q3.
This makes qualifying strategy more important than ever. This also might negatively affect a few of the teams who take longer to warm their tires, like Red Bull and Ferrari.
However, this experiment might not happen—it all depends on the weather. If it’s a wet or even wet/dry qualifying, the experiment will be abandoned and teams can run whatever tires they want. There’s the potential for storms on Saturday, so there’s a chance the experiment won’t go through. If it doesn’t, we’ll see the format in Monza, but if it rains there we might be out of luck.
I don’t have any particular opinion on these changes. It still requires strategy, so it doesn’t remove that aspect from qualifying, which is really all I care about. In fact, this adds a cool new strategic challenge. However, if we watch it and it dramatically reduces the tension, then I might be a little sad. We’ll see this weekend, I guess, so long as it doesn’t rain!
Just when we thought Red Bull had left the RB19 to dominate and focused their efforts on next year’s RB20, they’ve announced they’re bringing upgrades to Hungary! And not just some small upgrades—these are expected to make the car two-tenths faster (it can get faster?) and visibly change the look of the sidepods.
Allegedly the change is to incorporate some version of the “waterslide sidepods” concept that Aston Martin has. So not quite as funny if they’d had Newey perfect the zero sidepod concept, but Red Bull bringing any upgrade at this point this year is hilarious.
In other Red Bull tech news, teams have revealed why they think copying Red Bull to get more speed would be too dangerous and complicated. Apparently the cohesion of the rear of the RB19 is so great it can shed far more drag than the other cars, and this powerful rear suspension means the car can sit extremely low when the DRS is open as well. Mimicking this set up in any way, without figuring out the secret to the RB19’s rear, would create major issues for the other cars.
I love tech in F1. The upgrade arms race happening this season has been a huge plot point for me. If these “waterslide sidepods” work, we get even more proof Adrian Newey is a once-in-a-lifetime aero genius. If they don’t—well, then we get a closer field, and maybe someone other than Red Bull will win a race?
Formula 2 will be at the Hungaroring this weekend as well, and the Championship race in this tier is so close it has me on the edge of my seat. The top three are separated by only 24 points—with 37 points maximum on offer each race weekend, that means anyone is one good race away from being first, or one bad race away from falling down the order.
Fred Vesti is leading the championship after a fantastic first half of the year with Prema, and his teammate Ollie Bearman is in fourth with an equally impressive rookie season. However, the feature race last weekend was miserable for Vesti, and he needs a good weekend to bounce back.
Theo Pourchaire, driving with ART this year, is in second. That’s good, but he was expected to be the definite frontrunner for the championship this year, so I wonder if it’s good enough for Sauber (he’s a member of their academy). His teammate, Victor Martins, is in fifth—the F3 champion has had a tough first year, but has been bringing it back recently.
Ayuma Iwasa, the Red Bull junior and Honda Dream Project member, is in third and driving his heart out. He’s a real get for Red Bull’s junior program… but will he remain one for much longer, with Honda’s move to Aston Martin and rumors of Aston Martin’s plans for a junior team floating around?
Finally, I’m interested in the collapse of Jack Doohan. After the 2022 F2 season, people were expecting him to challenge for the championship this year. Instead he’s in seventh and 63 points behind Vesti. There’s enough races that he’s not out of the running yet, but he’s certainly not where people expected. He’s been doing okay recently, if you don’t count complaining on the radio, but will he bring his reputation back to the top?
There’s so much happening in F2 right now, I need everyone to go watch it! The championship race and teammate battles are some of the most exciting racing I’ve seen in a while.
Some small things to leave you with:
The trophies for the Hungarian GP have been revealed, and they are gorgeous. They’re porcelain, made by a famous Hungarian porcelain company, and worth eight figures. All of that pales in comparison to how unique and beautiful they are, however—seriously, I love them, 10/10 from me.
Liam Lawson won another Super Formula race!! He’s been doing so well. I think he’s going to win the championship—or at least I hope so. He’s been so consistent: in six races he’s had three P1 finishes, two P5 finishes, and a P4 finish.
Where do we think Daniel Ricciardo will finish?? I’m hoping for a points finish—maybe 7th?—but I honestly don’t know. I will be happy with any kind of ‘finish/ from him because it means he’s racing <3. I will celebrate P20 or a DNF like a podium.
No one knows where Ferrari went last week—news articles have quoted them saying they were “unconfident” and “scared” driving the car. This entire season driving the Ferrari has been like driving on a “knife’s edge” but they’ve usually finished above the P9 and P10 they did last week. This weekend will be a chance to see if they’ve upped their confidence and can get the car further into the points.
Good links:
Sergio Perez Faces A No-Win Situation As Red Bull Slump Continues - Dre, WTF1
A solid assessment of where Perez stands at Red Bull. Short answer: he’s really in a bind—and this was written before Daniel Ricciardo rejoined AlphaTauri.
Albon's calmness and confidence "spreading around the garage" of Williams F1 team - Filip Cleeren, Autosport
Alex Albon has really come into his own at Williams. It’s wonderful to see him as a leader and figurehead for such an important team working on such a significant renaissance.
Lawson understands why AlphaTauri chose Ricciardo over him for F1 seat - Jamie Klein, Motorsport.com
I’m okay with Lawson finishing up his Super Formula run, so long as he gets his seat next season. I need to see the chaos that is Liam and Yuki on a team—they were wild enough as neighbors.
I melted into the earth watching this. I missed Daniel so much. He looks happier and heathier—I hope the AlphaTauri doesn’t take that from us.
Yuki Tsunoda says ‘not much reason’ to swap AlphaTauri for Red Bull - Sam Cooper, PlanetF1.com
As silly season really begins, and pressure on Checo grows, people are touting a move to Red Bull for Yuki—but Yuki seems genuinely uninterested in leaving AlphaTauri.
This weekend we see Daniel Ricciardo on the grid again, which is enough to make me literally insane. But more than that, hopefully the Hungaroring will provide another legendary race for us to enjoy. After a weekend-break, I’m hoping Hungary will take us into the double-header before summer break with a bang!