Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: The Hungaroring is a short and twisty circuit where overtaking is difficult and tyre management critical. In contrast to the last few races, most teams will run high downforce in Hungary, and we are unlikely to see the swings in rear wing choices that we saw at Silverstone, the Red Bull Ring and Paul Ricard.
The weather forecast looks typical for Budapest at this time of year, with generally hot conditions prevailing but a chance of thunderstorms on Saturday and Sunday.
Tyre compounds are the same as for the French GP, but the nature of the track will mean that we will need to deal with some different limitations this weekend, some of which will be dictated by the weather. The long corners will challenge both the tyres and the car balance and will provide a new test of the recent upgrades that we have brough to FW44.
Nicholas Latifi: I’m excited to go back to Hungary! Last year we had some good memories there with a double points finish. It was a track that we seemed to go quite well on so hopefully we can carry over the same this year. This is the second time for me using the upgrade package and we’re looking to take the learnings from France to optimise it a little bit more. The weather looks unpredictable for Saturday which could present some opportunities that we can take advantage of and have a good weekend.
Alex Albon: I’m looking forward to Hungary as it’s a nice, proper driver’s circuit with lots of twists. Because of this, qualifying is quite important compared to other circuits. I’m excited to see what we can extract from the new package, as it felt like we had a positive weekend in France so can hopefully build on that for Hungary. Some rain is predicted for across the weekend so this will play a part, however last year Williams played a good strategy and it paid off with some points so hopefully we can do something similar.
No comment