Formula 1 heads to the Hungaroring this weekend for a Hungarian Grand Prix that has more intrigue than usual.
Red Bull arrive on the brink of making history, while their sister team AlphaTauri bring a reshuffled driver line-up including the return of a fan favourite who all eyes will be on this weekend.These are the talking points for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo’s return
After ten rounds away from the grid, Daniel Ricciardo will return to racing in Formula 1 at the Hungaroring this weekend in one of the biggest stories from the first half of the 2023 season. He will arrive in place of Nyck de Vries, who was unceremoniously dropped from his seat at AlphaTauri in order to be replaced by a veteran with more than 220 more starts to his name.
Ricciardo returns to Red Bull’s junior team after previously racing with them in 2012 and 2013, when they were known as Toro Rosso. The 34-year-old has been acting as third driver for the senior team over the first half of the season, sharing reserve driver duties with Liam Lawson and putting in the hours in Red Bull’s simulator as well.
Despite being out of a race seat for half a season, Ricciardo has driven a 2023 Formula 1 car more recently than the majority of the grid. He participated in a closed Pirelli tyre test at the Silverstone circuit following the last grand prix, with Red Bull reportedly being impressed with his performance. Ricciardo will be eager to hit the ground running in Hungary after his torrid two seasons at McLaren – aside from a stunning victory in Monza – resulted in him losing his place on the grid after last season.
While he admits stepping in mid-season will be a “challenge”, Ricciardo is looking forward to getting back to racing once more.
“I think it’s a challenge, for sure, to jump in and try to hit the ground running,” Ricciardo said. “But I guess I feel like I’ve also been through a lot the last year – or even the last few years – where I’m not really scared of anything that’s going to be thrown my way.
“I actually really do like the challenge. I say ‘challenge’ because yes, it will be a challenge. But I don’t know if I’d have it any other way.”
Red Bull on the brink of history
For the last 33 years, one the most impressive all-time records in Formula 1 history has stood untouched. In 1988, McLaren recorded a winning streak of 11 consecutive grand prix victories – an achievement that was unmatched over more than three decades despite dominant runs by the likes of Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes.
But now, McLaren, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost are no longer alone in this remarkable statistic. Last time out at Silverstone, the untouchable Red Bull team secured their 11th straight win stretching back to last year’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix by claiming victory with Max Verstappen at Silverstone. In doing so, they also maintained their perfect run of victories in the 2023 season, making it ten out of ten so far.
What is perhaps even more daunting is that if it was not for George Russell and Mercedes winning at the Brazilian Grand Prix in the penultimate round of last year, the world champions would be currently sitting on a run of 20-straight wins going back to the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard last July. Russell is the only driver outside the Red Bull team to have won a grand prix in the last 12 months.
It is arguably the most dominant run in the sport’s history, made even more impressive by the fact that Red Bull’s RB19, while undoubtedly the class of the field, has nowhere near the same single-lap performance advantage over its adversaries than McLaren enjoyed with the MP4/4 back in 1988. If Verstappen or team mate Sergio Perez take the chequered flag first on Sunday in Hungary, Red Bull will be the sole owners of one of the most significant records in Formula 1.
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McLaren in the fight
At the start of the 2023 season, McLaren were in a world of trouble. For the second season in succession, they endured a difficult start to the year in Bahrain after a challenging pre-season testing period. Oscar Piastri retired on his debut with an electrical problem, while Lando Norris suffered a horrible race with a pneumatic leak which forced him to pit six times.
But after scoring points in just three of the first eight rounds of the season, McLaren arrived to Austria with a major upgrades package for Norris, which he used to take fourth place in the grand prix – McLaren’s best result of the season.
The big question heading into Silverstone was whether or not McLaren’s performance would be confirmed at their home grand prix with Piastri getting the benefit of the revised car alongside his team mate. That question was answered emphatically when Norris secured a front row start behind Verstappen, while Piastri backed up his team mate in third place.
In the race, McLaren showed their race pace was just as strong and their single lap performance. Norris took the lead and the start and led the opening laps, eventually holding off Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps to secure second place, with Piastri finishing fourth after losing third place due to a poorly-timed Safety Car. McLaren’s 42-point haul in eight days leapt them from 27 behind Alpine in the constructors’ championship to 12 ahead of their rivals in fifth.
Now, all eyes will be on McLaren to see whether they can maintain their new-found speed around a high-downforce circuit like the Hungaroring.
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Alternative tyre test
After being originally planned for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix weekend in Imola before the event was cancelled, Hungary will play host to the first test of the Alternative Tyre Allocation format for the first time this season.
During the entire race weekend, covering the three practice sessions, qualifying and the grand prix, each driver will receive a reduced allocation of 11 sets of Pirelli tyres instead of the standard 13 sets at all other rounds. These sets consist of four sets of softs, four mediums, and three hards.
In Saturday’s qualifying session there will be specific tyre restrictions. In Q1, all drivers must run on hard tyres, with those who progress to Q2 limited to only running on mediums. The top ten drivers who make it to the final shoot-out for pole position will be required to use soft rubber in the final phase.
The rules allow for the ATA experiment to take place at a second round later in the season. It has not yet been decided whether this will happen, but it will not be one of the four remaining sprint weekends. The goal of this experimental format is not focused on entertainment but rather on reducing overall tyre consumption throughout the weekend. While these changes will impact every driver on the grid, it may end up affecting some teams more than others.
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Perez’s peril
What started as an unfortunate pattern of consecutive failures to reach Q3 has now developed into an alarming streak of five straight disappointments in qualifying for the Red Bull driver.
After heading into the Miami Grand Prix on the back of a strong weekend in Baku and within a handful of points of his team mate in the championship, Perez has now fallen 99 points behind Verstappen. In that same time, Verstappen has won every single race and set five consecutive pole positions, while Perez has not seen Q3 at all since that Miami weekend.
While Perez will be desperate to break this unwelcome run at the Hungaroring, he will have to first put aside memories of last season, when he also failed to reach Q3 after being eliminated in 11th place. On that occasion he was the victim of a lap time being erroneously deleted for a track limits infringement, then reinstated, meaning he took a second new set of tyres in an attempt to progress from Q2. However, even with fresh tyres he could not improve by enough to get into the top ten and eliminated in 11th.
Are Aston on the decline?
After starting the 2023 season in such strong fashion with five podiums for Fernando Alonso in the opening six rounds, Aston Martin have spent two races off the podium for the first time all year.
While their early season performance was still far beyond what any at the team would have realistically expected – including Alonso himself – the Silverstone-based team are now facing heavy pressure from their rivals around them in the constructors’ championship. Now, there is even a new threat from McLaren, who suddenly launched themselves into the fight at the front of the field in the last round.
Aston Martin have benefited from a generous allocation of aerodynamic testing time allowed under the regulations as a result of finishing seventh in last year’s constructors’ championship. But with the allocation reset mid-season, they now have a lot less time to play with. What that could mean for the rest of their season remains to be seen, but if they do not show more pace around a high-downforce circuit this weekend compared to what they did at Silverstone, it could be a sign that Aston Martin’s days of fighting for a podium may already be behind them.
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Are you going to the Hungarian Grand Prix?
If you’re heading to Hungary for this weekend’s race, we want to hear from you:
Who do you think will be the team to beat in the Hungarian Grand Prix? Have your say below.
And don’t forget to enter your predictions for this weekend’s race. You can edit your predictions until the start of qualifying:
2023 Hungarian Grand Prix
- Was F1’s Alternative Tyre Allocation test successful? Drivers and teams have their say
- How far can McLaren climb with car rivals now say is the second-fastest in F1?
- Why Ricciardo says McLaren’s car “speaks Lando’s language” – but Norris disagrees
- Mercedes reveal cooling error behind loss of pace in Hungarian GP
- Perez answered critics in Hungary but needs to qualify better – Horner
asd
18th July 2023, 9:45
I hope Aston Martin come back to the front of the grid. This season has shown, that all the B-level teams like Ferrari, McLaren, Aston Martin, Mercedes are at any time just 1 major successful car upgrade away from being able to race for the podiums.
Ken
18th July 2023, 10:22
More worrying for me has been Astons race pace in the last two races ,which used to be better than gualifying anyway ,but lately has not been good at all.
Todfod (@todfod)
18th July 2023, 15:55
I think they had figured out how to manage tyre degradation better than most of their midfield competitors at the start of the season. They seem to have lost that advantage recently.. and what’s more worrying is that they haven’t had any upgrades to improve their high speed cornering.
If I had to guess.. they’ll struggle in the 1st sector at Hungary, but perform decently in sector 2 and sector 3. They could be the 2nd or 3rd fastest team again this weekend, but doubt they’ll be competitive at a lot of circuits that are left on the calendar year.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
18th July 2023, 11:40
Hungaroring should play more to Aston’s strengths than the previous two races, as they perform better in the slow speed corners than the high speed and long straights. They are kind of the opposite of McLaren in that respect. It remains to be seen how much the development and upgrades of the two teams over the past few races will affect things, but i wouldn’t be surprised to see Aston back on form and McLaren falling back towards say Alpine levels in this particular race.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
18th July 2023, 15:19
I’d rather see two McLarens at the front than one Aston Martin.
Todfod (@todfod)
18th July 2023, 15:56
I’d rather see no Red Bull at the front
x303 (@x303)
18th July 2023, 22:03
Alleluia!
BasCB (@bascb)
18th July 2023, 23:11
Amen to that!
Jimmy Cliff
18th July 2023, 10:14
“What is perhaps even more daunting is that if it was not for George Russell and Mercedes winning at the Brazilian Grand Prix in the penultimate round of last year, the world champions would be currently sitting on a run of 20-straight wins going back to the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard last July. ”
That would actually be a 21 win streak, 11 wins in 2022 and 10 wins in 2023.
Symmetry in long win streaks interrupted
With Red Bull winning at Silverstone they have won 20 of the last 21 races with Mercedes disrupting the party at Brazil 2022 (Russell’s 1st win).
Similarly Mercedes won 20 of the last 21 races back in 2015/2016 with Red Bull disrupting the party at Spain 2016 (Max’s 1st win).
Jere (@jerejj)
18th July 2023, 10:19
Ricciardo’s return – The one thing about the upcoming race weekend I’m looking forward to the most, & for his sake, I hope he does well over the remaining season, even if this would mean bad news for Yuki.
Red Bull on the brink of history – Indeed, & in all likelihood, they’ll surpass that record.
McLaren in the fight – The last two circuits are both among the fastest, so the story could be different at Hungaroring, the outright fourth-slowest circuit, so waiting before making definitive conclusions is better.
Alternative tyre test – I’m looking forward to seeing how this experiment will work, although I doubt it’ll really make a difference to competitive order, & as a side note, iirc, the standard set amount of 13 is applicable to all other events with standard format, with 12 for sprint events.
Perez’s peril – He really needs to improve now that Ricciardo is back racing to avoid ending up without a drive despite an existing contract until next year’s end. Not making Q3 in a regular qualifying at all from Monaco GP onwards in the outright fastest car is rather embarrassing.
Are Aston on the decline? – Too early to judge.
Todfod (@todfod)
18th July 2023, 16:01
Quite a few things to follow for the upcoming weekend.
Ricciardo’s return – Not sure how much fun it will be seeing him battle the Alfas and Williams, but if he can get in front of Yuki, it should be entertaining.
Red Bull will shatter that record unless a mechanical DNF stops them.
Mclaren won’t be as strong here as they were at the British GP. If I had to guess, they’ll be behind Aston this weekend.
Tyres – Don’t think it will change the pecking order much.
Perez – Will remain awful
Aston – They’re on the decline, but should perform well at this circuit.
Billys (@bilarxos)
18th July 2023, 17:33
I am curious about Ricciardo’s drive with RB7 (IIRC) at Nurburgring on September.
It’s going to happened now that Ricciardo is officialy back with AT?
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
18th July 2023, 22:38
Somebody close to (a can of) Red Bull says Nyck de Vries is doing it now.
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
18th July 2023, 20:02
Looking forward to….a nothing race. F1 has outgrown Hungaroring long time ago, and watching these massive battleships circling the slow, slow go-kart corners just ain’t worth the time.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
19th July 2023, 9:13
Actually it’s usually good lately because drs is way too powerful, and then you have monaco where you basically can’t pass no matter the dr, and hungary is exactly the right balance to make overtaking challenging but not impossible.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
19th July 2023, 9:14
drs*
SteveP
19th July 2023, 20:12
That’s not a good phrasing.
The safety car was perfectly timed and was out on track swiftly after the on track incident.
It was an unfortunately timed safety car as far as Piastri was concerned. Poor no, unfortunate yes.