Pirelli Motorsport’s Mario Isola is expecting qualifying to have another significant impact on determining the race winner on Sunday at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Hungary is the final race before Formula One goes on its summer break and Isola believes that every team will be wanting to go into the break with a strong result.
“After an exceptionally tough start to the year, Hungary marks the traditional mid-season break, so the teams will be especially keen to finish the first half of the year strongly.”
Three of the past six winners have been from pole position and Isola believes that while qualifying will be very important, it will be interesting to see how the drivers cope with the ultrasoft tyre during the race.
“Hungary is often decided in qualifying, so it’s going to be interesting to see the effect of the ultrasoft this year and how it degrades on what is normally a hot surface, where the tyres are constantly working.
“Understanding this, and how the ultrasoft relates to the rest of the range that we have brought to the circuit, will be the key to unlocking a successful race strategy.”
Hungary sees Pirelli bring the medium, soft and ultrasoft tyres and Isola feels having the extra step between the compounds will allow teams to mix up their strategy even more.
“For the third time this year, we have a ‘step’ between the nominated compounds: this means that there should be quite an evenly spaced performance gap between all three tyres, allowing different strategic options.”
