Why Mercedes is pleased to be in the Hungary hunt at a 'Red Bull track'

As Red Bull possesses 2021’s fastest Formula 1 car, it’s something of a misnomer to describe a certain circuit as favouring one team over another. After all, with the best overall package, the squad in that position would expect to be the leader at every venue the championship visits.

But the idea of the Hungaroring being considered a ‘Red Bull track’ stems from the reason why the team has 2021’s fastest package: the RB16B simply has the most downforce and the Hungarian GP circuit is renowned for rewarding cars with better aerodynamic performance and mitigating engine deficits. After dominant Red Bull displays in Monaco and Baku, with a little bit of help from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in the former, this weekend’s event returns to such a lower-speed, higher-downforce-dependent setting, and so the championship leader’s position is strengthened – on paper.

And while Red Bull may indeed return to winning ways in Sunday’s grand prix after Max Verstappen’s controversial clash with eventual victor Lewis Hamilton last time out at Silverstone, in the opening practice sessions on Friday in Hungary Red Bull appeared to struggle more than Mercedes.

That could be seen in the final order of FP2 – the session that is directly comparable to the race, assuming it stays dry (more on that weather-watching fun later). There, Verstappen - the fastest driver in FP1, although only 0.061s ahead of Valtteri Bottas - ended up third behind the Finn and Hamilton, 0.298s off the pace.

FP2 overall order

“In general, it was not an easy day on track," Verstappen said after FP2. “We had a few adjustments that we were working on from FP1 and FP2 that we need to look into, seeing what works and what doesn’t. There are a lot of things to analyse this evening but there’s nothing too big to overcome, so I’m not worried.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

An understandably understated sentiment from the current drivers’ championship leader, and of course it’s worth us highlighting as always the usual practice caveats regarding varying engine modes and fuel loads applying when assessing the times set today.

But it does seem as if there is cause for both concern and yet some encouragement for Red Bull, based on data Autosport has seen and gathered from the Hungarian event’s opening two practice sessions.

For a start, one source reckons Red Bull was shipping 0.5s to the Mercedes cars on the straights, and then gaining roughly 0.15s back in the track’s slower turns and another 0.1s in the medium speed corners – with Red Bull and Mercedes level-pegging in the higher-speed stuff (of which Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr pointed out that the Hungaroring’s layout has generally become much faster in recent seasons thanks to the development rate of the current car generation).

Autosport understands that in terms of the engine modes Red Bull and Mercedes respectively ran on Friday, the Black Arrows squad was turned up a chunk more compared to its rival. Data Autosport has seen suggests Mercedes was slightly faster through the Turn 8 left at the start of the track’s highly technical sequence at the end of the middle sector, with Red Bull gaining back time in the subsequent and longer right of Turn 9.

Red Bull’s straight-line speed deficit witnessed on Friday could also be coming from the very thing that makes the RB16B so strong – it’s high-downforce nature creating more drag

Mercedes was also apparently also quicker through the fast, 90-degree right of Turn 11, which also indicates the team was perhaps running a higher engine mode compared to Red Bull given that corner is taken flat out and the cars are otherwise on equal footing in the higher speed turns.

But Red Bull’s straight-line speed deficit witnessed on Friday could also be coming from the very thing that makes the RB16B so strong – it’s high-downforce nature creating more drag. So, although it can be interpreted that Mercedes may have shown slightly more of its ultimate hand compared to Red Bull today, there’s no guarantee that simply turning the Honda engine up to its maximum would close Verstappen’s one lap time difference to Bottas.

At the same time, given what has been witnessed on many occasions so far this season, that could well turn out to be what happens in qualifying. Here, how F1’s two leading squads deal with a peculiar issue seen on Friday may indeed make a crucial difference in the fight for pole, as ever so important within the narrow confines of the Hungaroring come race day.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“I think everyone’s been struggling with the front tyres,” Hamilton stated after FP2. “They’re a different beast this year, and it’s different each race you go to. So that’s been an interesting process, trying to understand those better.”

What Hamilton is referring to concerns a difficulty both Mercedes and Red Bull encountered on Friday regarding switching on the front tyres to reach their ideal operating window. Despite track temperatures reaching 62°C in FP2, it seems the drivers at the leading squads were struggling to get the front tyres working as they wanted until very late on their push laps. At the rear, the scorching temperatures were “melting the tyres”, again per Hamilton, as could be expected in such hot conditions.

It is very unlikely the rear tyres would be in the best condition if an extra preparation lap was added to try and help the fronts be in a better operating state early in a theoretical flying lap with such a convoluted run plan, so how Mercedes or Red Bull get on in solving this conundrum for qualifying could well be pivotal.

The front tyre problem is causing understeer, which Hamilton complained of more in FP1, while Verstappen was more vocal about the issue following his soft-tyre run in FP2.

Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained that his squad “got off to a fairly difficult start” on the hard tyres in FP1 “as the grip and balance just weren't there”, but added “as the day went on we seemed to improve in terms of the timesheets, although we're still finding the balance quite tricky”.

This apparent gain perhaps explains why Hamilton said he was: “Quite optimistic with the extreme temperatures right now. I’m optimistic because I think we can definitely improve the car balance-wise. And if we can do that, it puts us in a better position for the race as well.”

In terms of the long-run race-pace averages calculated on Friday for Mercedes and Red Bull, the end-of-FP2 higher-fuel stints followed the 2021 trend of being wonderfully extra muddled. The high temperatures exacerbated the typical struggles with tyre degradation, while traffic was also an issue because of this track’s narrow layout.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But Autosport’s number crunching – again with those oh-so-fun caveats in mind – suggests Mercedes led the way versus Red Bull in the longer running on the medium tyres at the end of FP2.

Hamilton’s seven-lap stint on the yellow-walled rubber produced an average of 1m22.253s, whereas Sergio Perez produced Red Bull’s best – a 1m23.271s – on the same compound. Intriguingly for Mercedes, Bottas’s 13-lap stint on the mediums also came in 0.4s quicker than Perez’s stint.

Again, the apparent engine mode difference will have been playing a part in how the averages shook out, with the general consensus being that the fight between Red Bull and Mercedes remains as finely poised as ever.

With a suggested 0.9s difference between the softs and mediums, that could leave someone exposed if a driver doesn’t nail their first Q2 lap or if either squad has got its sums wrong

But, even if going to optimum engine modes or solving the front tyre conundrum can’t separate them – and they probably would if the conditions encountered on Friday are replicated for qualifying and the race – two other factors just might.

First, Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola said after FP2 that “with a bigger [time] gap between medium and soft than we expected for now, getting through the Q2 session on the medium isn't guaranteed for anybody”. Using the harder rubber at the start of the race is the typically preferred option for both Red Bull and Mercedes, but with a suggested 0.9s difference between the softs and mediums, that could leave someone exposed if a driver doesn’t nail their first Q2 lap or if either squad has got its sums wrong when it comes to making the typical overnight handling improvements.

Then there’s the threat of rain impacting the rest of the weekend. It’s often tantalised given the potential for precipitation to shake up the competitive order – the great equaliser as the cliche goes – but it has been a feature at two of the last seven Hungarian GP qualifying sessions, with the same number of wet-weather-impacted races coming in the same period.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Although the forecast has rain arriving as an overall unlikely scenario, if it does come down it will likely do so fast, with thunderstorms being the suggested situation. Therefore, expect much discussion about cloud cover, which will of course have an overall impact on the critical track temperatures, in qualifying (with rain currently thought to be even less likely on Sunday).

So, Mercedes is pleased with the position and feeling it has ended Friday practice with in Hungary at a ‘Red Bull track’. But it knows all too well that its rival cannot be underestimated and that outside factors could yet make a big difference.

“Overall, it is encouraging to see both cars at the top of the timesheets,” concluded Shovlin. “But with a risk of rain it may be a very difficult challenge tomorrow so we cannot take anything for granted.”

Lewis Hamilton runs wide at Turn 11 in FP2

Photo by: Motorsport Images