Hungarian Grand Prix: Track Check

We are back racing after a long wait of 3 weeks. But the disappointing thing is there is another 4-week break after this race. Specifically for this reason, it becomes important for the teams to put in a good performance so as to keep the morale high going into the compulsory two-week shutdown during the break.

Coming to the Hungaroring, it is one of the tightest and slowest on the calendar and is very rightly said to be Monaco without the walls. The main problem here is the very few opportunities for overtaking. Even with DRS, this race is among those with the least number of overtakes.

Add to that the extremely high temperatures this weekend, the engineers have a double whammy to deal with. On the one hand, few overtaking opportunities would force them to go for more one-lap pace but while doing the same the tyres might suffer severe thermal degradation in the race. Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean would be licking their lips!

Tyre Choices

Tyres will be a big talking point this weekend after the recently concluded Young Drivers’ Test became basically a tyre test for Pirelli so that they could optimize the combination of the 2012 construction with the 2013 compound. Before the drama in Silverstone, Pirelli had nominated the medium and hard compounds for Hungary.

In the aftermath of those spectacular tyre failures, they decided to run the 2012 constructions which would allow softer compounds to be run- in a different context, the more logical option given the high number of slow corners and low loading on the tyres.

So finally, we have the Soft and Medium. Looking at the long run laptimes in FP2, it seems the Medium will be the preferred race tyre seeing the quicker dropoff on the softs but the higher operating window of the softs might provide an alternative given the high ambient temperatures.

Track Characteristics

Since the first race held here in 1986, the layout has undergone very few changes. The circuit is a combination of slow corners and chicanes. That calls for better torque response at lower RPM from the engines and along with that, the major challenge will be to minimize the wheel spin at the exit of corners. There are three medium-length straights of which two are DRS zones- those before and after Turn 1.

The best overtaking spots are Turns 1 and 2. Overtakes have been attempted on the outside of Turn 5 but they rarely come off as the driver ahead can easily close the door. The extremely tight Sector 3 provides no overtaking opportunities whatsoever which makes it essential for the driver behind to not lose much time in the dirty air of the one ahead, remain in the 1 second window at the DRS detection point and then go for the pass when the rear wing flap opens.

DRS zones

This year’s race will feature two DRS zones, one on either side of the first corner. There will be only one detection point- just before the final corner.

Technical Information

Lap length: 4.381 km

Laps: 70

Race length: 306.6 km

Pit lane speed limit: 80 kph during all sessions**

Pit lane length: 360 m

Pit lane loss: approx. 17 seconds

Full throttle: 56%

Braking: 21%

Fuel Consumption: 4.9 kg/10 km

Tyre Choices: Soft (Yellow), Medium (White) along with Intermediate (Green) and Wet (Blue)

** New Rule introduced from the 2013 Hungarian Grand Prix