With 22 circuits, there can be a lot to take in, so we’ve organised for you to join us in Lando and Oscar’s engineering briefings, where we’ll walk you through this weekend’s key trackside topics so that you can enjoy the Hungarian Grand Prix to its fullest.  

There will be a lot of tyre talk this weekend with F1’s Alternative Tyre Allocation trial and the increased degradation at the Hungaroring in the new era of F1. Historically, the Budapest-based circuit is among the trickier to overtake on, but the 2022 regulations overhaul made it somewhat easier last season and it’s expected that this trend will continue in 2023.  

In partnership with Google Chrome, Cédric Michel-Grosjean will lead this weekend’s engineering briefing where he’ll look to explain why and what this means for us. He’ll also discuss what parts we are testing, including Oscar’s new front wing, and some of the other key decisions we’ll be facing in Hungary, which includes downforce levels, the smoothness of the circuit and the importance of cooling.  

It’s time to begin. Grab a coffee and follow us through the glass doors and into the Paddock Performance Centre. Take notes if you need them, but please keep them to yourself. 

Engineer: Cédric Michel-Grosjean
Event: Hungarian Grand Prix
Circuit: The Hungaroring

What is the Alternative Tyre Allocation and how will it affect us?

This weekend our thoughts will be dominated by tyres. That’s not unusual but it’s even more obviously the case in Hungary. We have tyres that are one step softer than last year, a track that features very high degradation, and we have the Alternative Tyre Allocation [ATA] in use for the first time.

The main points of the ATA are that we have 11 sets of slicks rather than the usual 13, and will be handing back four sets across the practice sessions [one set after each session on Friday, two sets after FP3] to take the usual seven sets through to qualifying and the race. The split between the compounds is different as well, with three sets of Hards, four sets of Mediums and four sets of Softs. Then, in qualifying, assuming its dry, we have to use Hard in Q1, Medium in Q2 and Soft in Q3.

Logically, we will want to save new tyres for qualifying and probably two sets for each session – but on this circuit, because of the high degradation, there is a reward for having new tyres available in the race. Tyre degradation will have a big impact and putting on a tyre that’s five laps fresher will be worth a lot of race time.

What does that mean for practice? It means we’ll be very, very careful with our resources, and practice will be a little difficult. For instance, in FP1, we won’t want to properly use more than a single set, and the data we’re getting from the laps at the end of the session won’t be hugely representative. If the track behaves the same as it did in the race last year, we’d expect to see high degradation from the front tyres, and understeer increasing as the session goes on. It’s something everyone will have to get used to. FP2 will likely run to a more ‘normal’ format – unless it rains, which is also a possibility!

Are we bringing further upgrades?

Oscar gets the new front wing this week bringing him up to the same spec as Lando, and we have small upgrades this weekend, as well as plenty of test items. We have test components around the front corner of the car, and we’re going to test a few parts around the floor as well. The aim is to increase load, which brings with it the risk of more porpoising – but that’s a lesser risk here that it was at Silverstone, given the profile of the Hungaroring.

With that in mind, we’ll want to start FP1 with rakes fitted to both cars to gather aero data. Once we’ve gathered enough data, we will remove them and use any remaining time and tyre life for set-up study and perhaps some launch practice.

How will we tackle Hungary’s kerbs and smooth surface?

Running with those rakes means we’ll be asking the drivers to be careful through the chicane at T6-7, and wary of running wide over the kerbs at T4, T9 and T11.

Those kerbs and particularly the chicane, are interesting – regardless of the rakes – for this generation of ground-effect cars. Last year, we used the kerbs and we’re not too worried about damage – but it does affect how you set-up the car. Except for a couple of bumps in the braking zone for T1, this track is quite smooth, which lets you set-up with a very stiff car – but there is a trade-off between needing a soft car to get through the chicane well, and a stiff car for performance everywhere else.

It’s likely that we will prioritise stiffness and ask the drivers to use less kerb in the chicane: that would be our normal thinking because the stiffer car buys you a few millimetres of ride-height and more downforce – but it is something we’ll want to study.

Choosing a downforce level

One of the easier decisions this weekend is choosing a downforce level. The Hungaroring is a maximum downforce circuit, not very sensitive to drag, so we’ll be fitting the big rear wing that last ran in Barcelona. It won’t be quite the same as we’ll use bigger gurneys here – it isn’t worth much but every little helps.

Why cooling is a concern and is overtaking possible?

Cooling is a factor we’ll also want to study. In the past, qualifying was all-important in Hungary because it was a race where overtaking was very difficult. That’s a little different now, with the level of tyre degradation in play but also with it being a bit easier to follow in these cars, making it easier to make the DRS move into T1.

But even with that, there’s a reasonable chance of spending significant portions of the race stuck in a DRS train – which places a high demand on cooling. It is perhaps more of a problem here because, main straight excepted, there’s really only one line and not much capacity to pull out of the tow to improve airflow – and thus not much margin for error with the cooling level.

This is particularly relevant to us, as we’re still learning about our capabilities with the new aerodynamic package, and the car on track isn’t yet a perfect match for our tools. We need to learn what we can in practice, which may involve having the cars spend some time running in dirty air – but not too much because we have a lot to do this weekend.

Briefing complete. Time for Lando and Oscar to head out onto the track so we can collect some data and put our hard work to the test.