The 2008 Hungarian GP Preview

Lewis Hamilton's back-to-back victories at Silverstone and Hockenheim have rescued his once, apparently, floundering season in no time at all. He's now four points clear of Felipe Massa with all the momentum in his favour going into this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, just as McLaren seem to have closed the all-round performance gap to Ferrari.

To top it off, returning to Hungary will be a boost for Hamilton with the memory of 2007. That was where the Alonso situation exploded but Hamilton put it all out of his mind on race day and kept Kimi Raikkonen's quicker Ferrari at arm's length to score an impressive victory.

His recent resurgence means all of his hopeful rivals are going to have to lift their games, with the Ferrari pair on top of that list.

BMW had the best of the battle behind Hamilton and Raikkonen last season and could do with a similar performance this time around to avoid losing touch with the championship race after a couple of quiet weekends, for Kubica particularly.

Five talking points

Can Ferrari bounce back?

Kimi Raikkonen © XPB

Successive defeats in Britain and Germany have left the Scuderia on the back foot, but the Hungaroring is likely to suit Ferrari a little better than McLaren. Although they will have to improve their performance over a single lap so prevent McLaren getting the upper hand in qualifying, and it may well be down to whichever driver gets himself bedded in quickest - rather than which car is best - that decides the outcome of the race.

Where next for Kimi?

With rumours of Santander switching their sponsorship from McLaren to Ferrari next year - and taking Fernando Alonso with them - plus doubts over Raikkonen's motivation, could a bad end to the season be the catalyst for the Finn walking out of F1? A good performance in Budapest would certainly ease those worries.

KERS

Max Mosley's grand plan to make F1 cars expend less energy has come under fire from the likes of David Coulthard, and two incidents in the past week, a BMW Sauber mechanic receiving an electric shock from a charged car and Red Bull being forced to evacuate their factory following a battery fire, have raised more concerns.

Silly season in full swing

The Alonso to Ferrari rumours are refusing to go away, Williams and Toyota could swap Kazuki Nakajima for Timo Glock, Toro Rosso are set to sign Bruno Senna, and most of the field want to join Ross Brawn's Honda revolution, even though he looks set to keep both Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello.

Will Max be there?

After Max Mosley's privacy case against the News of the World was resolved in his favour, the FIA president may be looking to get right back into the action in Budapest. The reception he receives both inside and outside the paddock when he does decided to attend another race could be influential in whether he will stand for re-election at the end of his current term.

What you need to be quick

1. Qualifying ability

The Hungaroring is often referred to as Monaco without the houses by virtue of its twisty nature. The lack of clear overtaking spots means that if you qualify near the front, you will probably finish there. Watch out for another Jarno Trulli special on Saturday.

2. Tyre management

Unlike at Monaco, five long second and third gear turns will work the outside edges of the Bridgestones hard, so deciding when to use the less favoured of the hard and soft tyres will almost certainly prove crucial in the race's outcome.

3. Good aero

Ferrari's strong point, although their testing of a shark fin engine cover at Jerez last week suggests they feel there is still time to be gained. McLaren have upped their game in recent weeks but are still to match Ferrari a circuit full of long, mid-speed corners.

4. Good low-speed traction

McLaren's strong point and could bring them back level with Ferrari's aero advantage. With just five of the Hungaroring's 14 corners being taken above third gear, the race looks set to be pretty close between the title contenders.

5. Supreme fitness

More of an issue in the days before the likes of the Malaysian, Bahrain, and Chinese races prompted drivers to jack up their warm-weather training programmes, but still important in a race where cockpit temperatures are expected to reach 50 degrees and drivers will lose three kilograms of body weight during the race.

Strategy

Grid position is everything at the Hungaroring. The optimum strategy is to run quite deep into the race, but few will risk carrying more than 20 laps of fuel in qualifying through fear of slipping down the grid and spending the race in a queue of traffic.

There is the possibility that someone will shed significant fuel on Saturday in an attempt to clinch the all-important pole position. But don't expect McLaren or Ferrari to take that risk because it's difficult to open enough of a gap in so few laps to avoid rejoining in the middle of the Toyota, Renault, Red Bull battle.

It will be a compromise between not risking starting too far back and having enough fuel to be well placed after the first round of stops.

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso lineup in the pitlane © LAT

If the race is going well for someone, we might see a slightly longer middle stint as highlighted perfectly by Lewis Hamilton last year when he was just a second ahead of Kimi Raikkonen but pitted four laps later and still rejoined in the lead.

History

Last year's Hungaroring weekend was infamous not for the race, but for the McLaren flare-up in qualifying when Alonso blocked Hamilton in the pits and then knocked him off pole as the chequered flag fell. We all know how that saga ended, but it didn't affect Hamilton that day as he dominated the race, getting his own back on the Spaniard.

Truly great races? There are only really three. The image of Nelson Piquet sideways at turn one while trying to curve his Williams-Honda around Ayrton Senna's Lotus-Renault during the inaugural 1986 race is one of the iconic sights of F1, as is Nigel Mansell's extraordinary pass of Senna in 1989 on his way to victory from 12th on the grid. Not bad at a circuit where overtaking is deemed to be nearly impossible.

For sheer drama though, few can match the 1997 race. Having already scythed by Michael Schumacher's Ferrari - in an Arrows of all cars - Damon Hill was cruelly robbed of victory on the final lap when a 50p seal broke and handed the win to Jacques Villeneuve.

A lap of the Hungaroring with Alex Wurz

"The Hungarian Grand Prix is an enjoyable race because Budapest is a beautiful city and the Hungaroring is a super-cool track. There are no proper straights on the lap and many of the corners are inter-linked, so if you make a mistake in one, you're still paying for it three corners later.

"The track picks up quite a lot of grip as more rubber goes down, which results in you going about five seconds per lap quicker during the race than was the case during Friday morning practice. When you combine that with the heat, it becomes seriously hard work for the drivers! The change in the grip level also makes it difficult to evaluate set-up changes, but that's part of the challenge.

"You brake for Turn 1 from 290kph and shift down to second gear. You accelerate out, pass through a kink and brake again for Turn 2, a long left-hander. It is second or third gear, depending on gear ratios, and it's a bit bumpy on entry so you have to be careful not to lock a wheel. At the exit you need to keep hold of the car because Turn 3 is a flat-out right-hander where you need to carry as much speed as possible because it's followed by a short straight.

"Turn 4 is a very fast fifth gear left-hander. The entry is blind and the exit is very narrow, so it's easy to make a mistake. If you have a good rhythm, you can carry speed through here and make up a lot of time. Usually fast corners aren't the place to make time, but you can through here because this corner punishes car-driver combinations that aren't in tune with each other.

"I love Turn 5 because you can attack it like you would in a go-kart. You brake, you chuck the car in, you slide all four wheels and you put the power down just as you hit some quite severe bumps. This makes it really exciting and you continue the four-wheel slide to the exit. Then you come to Turns 6 and 7, a chicane. You hit the right-hand kerb, but don't want to touch the one on the left because that unsettles the rear wheels under acceleration.

"A short straight follows before Turns 8 and 9. If your car has a good front end, you can carry an enormous amount of speed through Turn 8, which is a fourth gear left-hander. You want to keep to the left on the exit to ensure you have a good line through Turn 9, which is quite a slippery right-hander. If you lift off the throttle too fast on the approach, you have snap oversteer; if you lift too gently, you'll get understeer. It's a tricky corner.

"Turn 10 is a flat-out left-hand kink, before you come to Turn 11, which is a very fast right-hander. You approach it in sixth gear, change down to fifth and chuck the car in, hoping the front end sticks to the road. It's a very cool corner. You then go down a hill and brake to second gear for a right-hander which is quite straightforward, although you want to steer clear of the exit kerb because it will slow you down.

"The penultimate corner is quite bumpy on entry and it's easy to out-brake yourself. It's third gear and you floor the throttle mid-corner and steer the rear end with the throttle. A short burst of acceleration follows, before turning in to the last corner. It's very bumpy and slippery on entry, but there's a change in the asphalt in the middle and that's your cue to floor the throttle. You can't see the exit at this point, but it appears soon enough and you cross the start-finish line to begin another lap."