Six reasons Ferrari and Red Bull are back in the game

Red Bull and Ferrari took a bit of a beating last time out at Silverstone, as Mercedes dominated the British Grand Prix and suggested it might be about to stretch clearly away from the rest of the Formula 1 field at last.

But despite his squad's most complete performance of the season, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff sounded notes of caution about the rest of the season to come: "Our car is not always easy to set up. We have become much better at doing so. I would like to see Budapest, how the car works with a low[er] speed and high-track-temperatures track. Then, maybe, I will have a more complete picture."

So far that picture looks a little fuzzy for Mercedes, and decidedly brighter for Red Bull and Ferrari, which were both miles off the pace at Silverstone.

Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull topped both of Friday's free practice sessions for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Each time a Ferrari came next. Mercedes was only third quickest, with neither Hamilton nor team-mate Valtteri Bottas particularly happy with their cars.

PURE PACE RANKING
1 Red Bull (Ricciardo) 1m18.455s
2 Ferrari (Vettel) 1m18.638s
3 Mercedes (Bottas) 1m18.656s
4 Renault (Hulkenberg) 1m19.714s
5 McLaren (Alonso) 1m19.815s
6 Toro Rosso (Sainz) 1m19.834s
7 Force India (Ocon) 1m20.126s
8 Williams (Stroll) 1m20.791s
9 Haas (Magnussen) 1m21.345s
10 Sauber (Ericsson) 1m21.559s

It's close at the top, with only 0.201s separating the top three cars at present. All within the top three teams are expecting a genuinely close battle at the front this weekend, and there are six key reasons why Ferrari and Red Bull are suddenly in much better shape relative to Mercedes in Hungary.

1. MERCEDES' ENGINE ADVANTAGE COUNTS FOR LESS

The Hungaroring is often referred to as being like 'Monaco without the walls' - in fact McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne made that very comparison in Thursday's FIA press conference - but that only really applies in the sense the straightline sections are very short.

The "ridiculous" (Ricciardo's words) qualifying engine mode that Mercedes can employ in Q3 will certainly help the W08 be very strong through the first sector, which features the two longest straights of the lap linked by just two real corners - both hairpins.

Mercedes should have the quickest car through this sector. Bottas was actually 0.001s slower than Max Verstappen's Red Bull through here in practice two, but Mercedes will surely move decisively ahead when the engines are cranked up to full power.

That's why Verstappen feels Red Bull will need to find extra pace still to properly fight Mercedes in qualifying. This should be less of a concern for Ferrari - whether or not the FIA's recent clampdown on oil burning in the engines has robbed it of some extra potency.

But elsewhere on the circuit it is more difficult for Mercedes to make its engine advantage pay.

The W08 has tended to lack a bit of driveability compared to Ferrari off the slower corners this season, and the generally twisting layout of the Hungaroring makes it much more difficult to gain from the efficiency of the Mercedes energy recovery systems - particularly the MGU-H that recovers energy at full throttle - which were a key part of its massive advantage on the huge straights of Baku.

2. HUNGARY PLAYS TO RED BULL'S TYRE MANAGEMENT STRENGTHS

Even when the RB13 was performing inconsistently before its first big update at Barcelona, there was a notable occasion where the car came to life unexpectedly.

In the high heat of the daytime final practice session in Bahrain, Verstappen was fastest - a tenth clear of Hamilton's Mercedes and more than half a second clear of Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari.

The Red Bull looks particularly good at working the super-soft Pirelli compound used there, and also favoured here - where ambient and track conditions tend to be hot through the key sessions, though naturally not as hot as in the Bahrain daytime.

There seems a tendency for the Red Bull to work well on the super-soft tyre in hot weather. When conditions cooled off in the evening in Bahrain, Red Bull conversely struggled to generate tyre temperature, even though the Sakhir track surface is quite abrasive.

In Hungary, the prevailing conditions are hot and this seems to be suiting Red Bull.

LONG RUN RANKING
Super-soft
1 Mercedes (Bottas) 1m22.551s (2 laps)
2 Red Bull (Ricciardo) 1m22.642s (9 laps)
3 Ferrari (Raikkonen) 1m22.723s (5 laps)
4 Renault (Hulkenberg) 1m23.434s (10 laps)
5 Toro Rosso (Sainz) 1m23.616s (10 laps)
6 Force India (Ocon) 1m24.009s (2 laps)
7 McLaren (Alonso) 1m24.107s (9 laps)
8 Williams (Stroll) 1m24.172s (6 laps)
9 Haas (Grosjean) 1m24.259s (5 laps)
10 Sauber (Ericsson) 1m25.318s (6 laps)

Soft
1 Mercedes (Bottas) 1m22.049s (6 laps)
2 Ferrari (Vettel) 1m22.413s (8 laps)
3 Force India (Perez) 1m23.635s (5 laps)
4 Toro Rosso (Kvyat) 1m23.996s (7 laps)

Red Bull did no long running on the soft compound, as the second part of the session was disrupted by big crashes for Pascal Wehrlein's Sauber and Jolyon Palmer's Renault, while Vettel admitted to struggling for rhythm in his Ferrari. Bottas was impressively fast on the harder tyre, but didn't get many laps on the super-soft, which most teams spent the second part of the afternoon focusing on.

On this tyre the competitive spread is close. At Silverstone, the limitation was the front left tyre wearing out through the high-speed sweeps; at the Hungaroring the main challenge is completely different - managing thermal degradation of the rear tyres.

The corners come thick and fast through sectors two and three, with no real time on the straights to cool the tyres down, and by the time you reach the final two corners of the lap - both long-duration hairpins - the rear tyres are really feeling the strain.

This is why everyone was backing off between flying laps during the qualifying simulations (as well as to recover sufficient energy to recharge their batteries) and managing the rear tyre temperatures will be the limiting factor in the race.

This is something Mercedes has worked hard to improve at during the Pirelli era, while it has often been a particular strong point for Red Bull, and Ferrari as well.

3. MERCEDES STRUGGLES FOR BALANCE ON SMOOTHER CIRCUITS

In F1's V6 era, Mercedes has traditionally been much stronger on high-speed, abrasive tracks and in cool conditions. When F1 has headed to circuits with particularly smooth surfaces this season - namely Sochi and Monaco - and the weather has been hotter, Mercedes has not fared so well, finding it more difficult to get the tyres working, struggling particularly with instability at the rear.

In Baku, it appeared Mercedes had turned a corner in this regard - though the prevalence of long straights made direct comparison more difficult. The Hungaroring was resurfaced ahead of last season's race and the asphalt has remained very smooth.

The higher ambient and track temperatures, coupled with the fact the ultra-soft tyre is not used here, may help mitigate any residual problems Mercedes has, but Bottas and Hamilton both nevertheless reported difficulty getting their cars working consistently on Friday.

"It's a track that's easy to make mistakes and the lap can end up quite messy at times," Bottas said. "It was pretty gusty towards the end of the day and that's why we saw quite a few mistakes. The car didn't feel that great yet, balance-wise. There's work to do.

"We just really need to find the balance - that is the key. That way you can trust the car and be consistent in qualifying and find the limits. There are going to be three teams fighting for the top three positions. We were expecting this weekend that Red Bull can be strong here and Ferrari seems to like high-downforce tracks and hot conditions."

"The balance was quite bad today," added Hamilton. "FP2, started out good and then got a bit confusing later on. We're going to be working hard tonight to try and make sure we start better for tomorrow. It wasn't terrible but, I don't know whether it's from the tyres or the gust of wind maybe, we struggled."

4. MEDIUM-SPEED CORNERS AREN'T MERCEDES' STRONG POINT

The Hungaroring is predominantly made up of low-speed long-duration corners and shorter-duration medium-speed bends. Mercedes has tended to look most comfortable on quicker circuits with high-speed sweeps and/or long straights.

Elsewhere, through cornering challenges that are slower and/or tighter, the longer wheelbase, lower-rake Mercedes looks more vulnerable - particularly when the set-up isn't quite right.

This opens a window of opportunity for Red Bull, which is very strong under braking and looks particularly good through the longer duration corners at the Hungaroring.

Vettel has been saying for a while that Ferrari is quicker than Mercedes through the corners. Once he hones in on a better set-up, he should be a serious threat as well.

"This is the circuit where I think the top three teams are the closest, probably," added Hamilton, who described the RB13 as looking "pretty planted" out on the circuit. "The Red Bulls look like they have a little bit more downforce, maybe, Ferrari are very, very quick.

"I would say we're definitely not as quick as we have been, or we're not as quick as we were at Silverstone here, so it brings us all closer. I think tomorrow is going to be a tight battle."

5. RED BULL'S "BIG" UPDATE

Hamilton also alluded to the significant aerodynamic upgrade Red Bull has brought to the RB13 for this race. Having introduced that new front wing at Silverstone, Red Bull has brought some further refinements to the car for Hungary that Ricciardo called a "different kind of shaping and philosophy to what we've run so far".

Having topped both of Friday's practice sessions and looked very comfortable over the longer runs, despite being irked by Esteban Ocon's Force India apparently getting in his way, Ricciardo likened the effects of these updates to introducing a B-spec car.

"Today it certainly behaved more like a B," he said. "This morning looked strong out of the box. We were the first one on the green track and basically we kept good pace - even the long runs were strong and this afternoon we were able to replicate that with a hotter track.

"I do feel like we have gained some grip in the car and I wasn't complaining too much on the radio. I feel we have stepped in the right direction. I am pretty happy and I genuinely feel we can stay at the pointy end tomorrow."

6. DRIVERS MAKING THE DIFFERENCE

Some drivers just click with particular circuits; or the limitations those circuits place on the cars play to the particular strengths of certain drivers.

Nico Hulkenberg set the pace in F1's midfield battle for Renault on Friday, once again using the updated RS17 to good effect as his team-mate Palmer struggled to stay on the circuit.

Hulkenberg has often been mighty over a single lap this season, but he has tended to struggle in the past to maintain race pace on circuits such as this, where rear thermal degradation is the limiting factor.

It's why he went backwards in the Force India during last year's races here and in Austria, and conversely it's an area where his ex-team-mate Sergio Perez is particularly strong - ditto Kimi Raikkonen, Bottas and Ricciardo's Red Bull team-mate Verstappen.

Ricciardo isn't too shabby in this regard either and describes the Hungaroring as "a track I enjoy - as a driver, when it's a track you like you can find that extra tenth".

This emotional response is not so easy to measure, but perhaps also played a part in Red Bull's strong Friday form.

The note of caution here is that the Hungaroring is also a place where Hamilton usually excels - particularly over one lap. The effort that gave him pole for the 2015 race, by almost six tenths over Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, was a particularly stunning recent example.

Hamilton didn't manage to complete a qualifying run on the super-soft in practice two, but set a rapid pace on the soft compound - good enough to leave him fifth overall on the timesheet, only 0.324s off Ricciardo's ultimate pace and 0.226s quicker than the Red Bull ace managed on the same tyre in the early part of the session.

That suggests Hamilton is potentially right in the mix too here, even if his car isn't quite right yet. But even if Mercedes is still realistically the ultimate favourite - which it must be having claimed pole for the past four consecutive editions of this race - it currently looks as if the battle is going to be very close.

Let's hope so - a proper three-way fight at the front is just what Formula 1 needs.