Hungarian Grand Prix Preview

29 Jul 2010

The Hungaroring in Budapest is traditionally thought of as ‘Monaco without the walls’. Whilst the track is tight and twisty, it is not quite as slow as the Monte Carlo circuit and since the lengthening of the straights a few years ago it offers at least one opportunity for overtaking.

Last year’s race had drama for both the right and wrong reasons. Lewis Hamilton claimed the first ever victory for a K.E.R.S. powered car (this technology is due to be reintroduced next season) but this was following the horrible accident Felipe Massa suffered in qualifying where a stray part from Rubens Barrichello's rear suspension struck the younger Brazilian’s helmet.

Massa would love to have celebrated the anniversary of this accident with a win last week but once again intra-team rivalry reared its head as he allowed team-mate Alonso through to take the victory. The media storm that exploded afterwards added yet another twist to this dramatic season and added another layer of intrigue ahead of the Hungarian race.

This week may be one for SportGuru pundits to take a hit on pre-qualifying prediction points as this usually has a massive influence on the finishing positions. However, the weather forecast has varied dramatically for the weekend so all bets could be off.

Certainly, following Ferrari’s domination last weekend there is nothing to suggest they won’t be able to follow-up this performance. However, the very high downforce required for Hungary means that the set-up won’t be identical to Germany and thus Red Bull and particularly McLaren will be hoping for an improvement in relative performance. Red Bull will at least enjoy a week where they aren’t the centre of attention for once!

Anyway, one lucky SportGuru writer (cough, ahem) is off to the race this weekend to soak up some sun so let’s hope the racing is good (well if the weather isn’t the racing should be!). F1 takes a short break after this race so make sure you don’t have any prediction regrets going into it!