Tight, twisty, dusty and a real technical challenge - Sky Sports F1's Anthony Davidson is your guide for a corner-by-corner tour of Budapest's Hungarian GP circuit...
Tuesday 23 July 2013 11:20, UK
Turn One of the Hungaroring has been modified in recent years and, to be honest, I much prefer the current version to how it was before.
That then leads on to the short straight towards Turns Six and Seven -a rough-and-ready chicane which still feels untouched by the modern hand of Formula 1. If you take too much kerb here, it will retaliate by bouncing the car, but it's also one of those corners that gives the circuit its character. Sometimes, but mainly in the wet, we see cars trying to overtake here. It's very difficult to do, but with the new regulations in place it's possible we'll see a different approach from the drivers this weekend and a few of them will stick their nose in going into the braking zone. In any case, it's a very slow section, taken at about 55mph in second gear, requiring a car that is very good at changing direction and being able to cope with striking the kerbs. If you take too much kerb, especially on the inside of seven, it can really upset the car and sometimes result in a spin. This is a difficult and frustrating part of the track, but it can be rewarding in terms of your lap time if you do thread your car through efficiently. After the chicane, the track really starts to open up and begins to flow - if you have lots of downforce, this is a great section to drive, but, equally, it can be a nightmare if your car has a nervous rear-end. I've driven a Minardi around here as well as the car in which Jenson won for the first time - quite the contrast in machinery and I know which one I preferred! Turn Eight is a relatively fast left-hander, and it's important to sacrifice its exit for the right-handed Turn Nine - the same sequence of turns follows on from here but is taken at a much higher speed. Turn Ten is easily full throttle and we're now into a great part of the track: Turn Eleven. It's been played around with over the years, but I think they've now found a good balance between keeping it high speed and a technical challenge as well. The trick is to get the car as close to the left-hand side of the track as possible around Turn Ten, hugging the inside and not upsetting the car in its transition from turning left to right. So a driver should try to ease the car out of the left-hander into as straight a line as possible before turning in for Eleven. It's very important to get this right because this is a corner where you can make up a bit of time - and also a corner that will reward a car boasting a heap of downforce. On exit, running too wide onto the exit kerbs will scrub your speed, and the track then falls down the hill towards the 90-degree Turn Twelve. This is a corner which has a modern feel, with quite a bit of run-off and flat kerbs, and there's nothing to be intimidated about here. It's rare to see an overtake into Twelve, but if someone has made a pig's ear of Eleven then they will be vulnerable. Twelve then leads up a slight hill and back over to the right-hand side of the track for the penultimate corner - which is a really nice challenge, and one which you feel you can attack on entrance. However, just before you exit, the corner pinches on you, and if you've carried too much speed on the entrance then you'll suddenly find yourself out of road and unable to carry the speed that you thought you would. It's an interesting corner - frustrating if you're carrying too much understeer, but also definitely one where you can make up time. The track climbs a little more towards Turn Fourteen, and a driver will be looking to get the car over to the left-hand side for a corner which I would say is the most disappointing of the track. It feels pretty slow, in between second and third gear with nothing ever feeling quite right in terms of its gear ratio, and a bit like driving on a roundabout. There's no true apex, it's quite bumpy and just a little too high speed to follow another car closely through - which is one of the reasons why overtaking is so difficult into the circuit's most favourable place, Turn One. It has also an exit that goads you into putting your foot down earlier than you should, which can often catch you out, especially on race day when there's a lot of marbling just offline. It's one of those corners where you just can't carry the speed and distance to the car in front on the exit - an exit that brings us back onto the start-finish straight to complete another lap of the Hungaroring. AD