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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