Scuderia Ferrari will be aiming to end the first-half of the season on a high at the Hungarian Grand Prix, after Charles Leclerc retired from the race lead last weekend for the third time this season. Carlos Sainz Jr was the team’s only finisher at Circuit Paul Ricard after finishing fifth; however, it should’ve really been third.
Ferrari chose to pit Sainz late in the race, after the Spaniard had just overtaken Sergio Pérez for the final place on the podium. It would’ve sealed the perfect comeback for Sainz, who started the race in nineteenth due to exceeding the legal number of engine components changed.
With Max Verstappen inheriting victory in France, Ferrari and Leclerc have a mountain to climb to get back in the fight of either title. The Scuderia will be hoping to enter the summer in the best way possible, with victory in Hungary.
Victory at the Hungaroring this weekend would give Ferrari some much needed momentum ahead of the summer break, where they’ll be hoping to avoid another engine failure.
Head of Vehicle Operations at Ferrari, Diego Ioverno explained how the team will be running their cars at “maximum downforce” this weekend, due to the circuit’s slow corners.
“The Hungaroring is a regular fixture on the Formula 1 calendar, given that we have been racing here for almost 40 years. It is always held in the height of summer, most commonly around mid-August. It is usually very hot, but there can also be sudden and heavy storms. It is a slow track and like Monaco and Singapore, it is very difficult to overtake and generally, the cars are run in maximum downforce configuration to deal with the many slow corners.
“It’s a short track and the type of corners, the track surface, combined with the high temperatures, make it demanding on tyres, so Pirelli has chosen the compounds from the middle of the range – C2, C3 and C4. That’s why, even if overtaking is not easy, one tyre stop is generally not enough in the race”.
Ferrari are concerned about the F1-75’s temperatures this weekend, with the Hungarian Circuit not having a considerably long straight to cool the car down. This could be a problem for Ferrari, who are yet to get on top of their horrific reliability problems.
“From a temperature point of view, the Hungaroring is potentially more difficult than France as there are far fewer straights where components such as the radiators for the power unit, the gearbox oil, the brakes and other parts that require cooling, can benefit from as much airflow as possible,” continued Ioverno.
“While it’s true that this is not a track where high average power is needed per lap and so there is less energy to dissipate, it’s still something that cannot be taken for granted.
“Therefore, it will be important to choose the optimal cooling levels for reliability and performance after Friday, when we will check the correlation between real data and the modelling and simulation which, as always, are used to prepare for each event. Managing the heat of the tyres in the sunny conditions will also be very important”.
