2019 Hungarian Grand Prix - Hungaroring, August 2-4

[El Scorchio]

The Hungaroring should be a good indicator as to whether they work as expected or not. Be interesting to see how it shakes out between the top three teams. You'd assume Ferrari may struggle here with their lower downforce- at least for tyre durability- if not pace as well.

[Pyrone89]

This is W10 Merc territory with all those slow corners.
My prediction if dry:
1-2 Merc boys
3 Verstappen
4 Vettel
5 Leclerc
6 Sainz
7 Gasly
8 Norris

[Bill]

They is no way Max would finish behind Bottas even in Monaco where Mercedes had clear advantage Max was ahead in pace . The sun has finally set on Bottas championship ambitions from now on the fight is between Lewis and Max.

[Pyrone89]

They is no way Max would finish behind Bottas even in Monaco where Mercedes had clear advantage Max was ahead in pace . The sun has finally set on Bottas championship ambitions from now on the fight is between Lewis and Max.

True, but it is hard to overtake on this track and Merc have excellent party modes, so I expect Bottas to put it in front of Max with that in quali or from the starting line (bad starts RBR) and then be able to defend on the straights with the additional power over the Honda like he did in the early stages of Hockenheim (which has a way longer straight and even with DRS and a massive tow the Honda couldnt get the Mercedes)

[zibby43]

They is no way Max would finish behind Bottas even in Monaco where Mercedes had clear advantage Max was ahead in pace . The sun has finally set on Bottas championship ambitions from now on the fight is between Lewis and Max.

Max got ahead of Bottas in Monaco only because he crashed into him in the pits during the unsafe release lol. He outqualified Verstappen by nearly 4 tenths.

[zibby43]

Nah, Red Bull have advanced massively on slow speed corners as well. To some degree Ferrari as well. I expected a fierce battle to resume.

Hockenheim doesn't have a lot of slow corners, and Mercedes still made up nearly all of their time in them, so I'm going to have to disagree with that notion. Especially on a weekend where Merc was struggling to understand/setup the car and work the tires correctly with the new update.

I think Red Bull and Ferrari have both improved as the season has gone on, but not massively. We'll have an answer this weekeend because of the nature of the circuit.

[Restomaniac]

They is no way Max would finish behind Bottas even in Monaco where Mercedes had clear advantage Max was ahead in pace . The sun has finally set on Bottas championship ambitions from now on the fight is between Lewis and Max.

Hamilton has over 2 DNF’s in his pocket over Verstappen.

[Pyrone89]

Unless Merc decided to gift RB the plans to their W10 there is no reason to think the RB15 can beat the W10 under normal conditions at this time. People somehow think Austria and Germany were a reflection of a change in structural pace, but it is not. It were two races were team operations, specific car trouble (cooling) and especially driver errors (Bottas crash Germany, Ham crash Germany, Ham breaking his front wing over yellow curbs in Austria) made a big enough impact to overrule the normal running order. Just look at the Merc pace in Silverstone race and Germany FP long runs.

[erudite450]

Regarding the tyre choices.

Can anyone explain why Bottas would have just 1 set of hards? So this means in the race when they throw off their softs or mediums from the first stint, it will be Bottas's first time on the hard - period. Like is that not strange? The tyre you will spend the most time on during the race, you don't bother to run once prior.

Talking about leclerc and verstappen and co also.

Are you a new fan of the sport? Teams split the strategies for race sim between their drivers in FP2 so as to gather as much data as possible. For example, since Hamilton has one set of hards more than Bottas, he will do a S-H race sim in FP2 while Bottas who has one set mediums more than Hamilton will do a S-M race sim. They share the data in the team.

[erudite450]

The weather might well put paid to all our plans. There might be little to no running on Friday.

[Sieper]

Unless Merc decided to gift RB the plans to their W10 there is no reason to think the RB15 can beat the W10 under normal conditions at this time. People somehow think Austria and Germany were a reflection of a change in structural pace, but it is not. It were two races were team operations, specific car trouble (cooling) and especially driver errors (Bottas crash Germany, Ham crash Germany, Ham breaking his front wing over yellow curbs in Austria) made a big enough impact to overrule the normal running order. Just look at the Merc pace in Silverstone race and Germany FP long runs.

We don’t know Max’ real pace in Silverstone. He was caught behind Leclerc who made very sure Max wasn’t getting passed. RBR seem optimistic. I am very curious. Also what Ferrari can do. They might outqualify them all. Passing on track in Hungary is so very very hard.

[Zarathustra]

I have said it before- and I will say it again.

[digitalrurouni]

So Toto seemed to indicate the upgrade had done its job at the German GP but it didn't seem that way. Ya think there's a chance they are gonna revert the upgrades for the Hungary GP? I am thinking not. But during qualifying it didn't seem like the car was that bolted to the ground. I mean last year's lap record still stands.

Personally, I think they set the car up for a wet race, and thus compromised their dry & mixed running pace.

That makes sense actually.

[search]

Unless Merc decided to gift RB the plans to their W10 there is no reason to think the RB15 can beat the W10 under normal conditions at this time. People somehow think Austria and Germany were a reflection of a change in structural pace, but it is not. It were two races were team operations, specific car trouble (cooling) and especially driver errors (Bottas crash Germany, Ham crash Germany, Ham breaking his front wing over yellow curbs in Austria) made a big enough impact to overrule the normal running order. Just look at the Merc pace in Silverstone race and Germany FP long runs.

We don’t know Max’ real pace in Silverstone. He was caught behind Leclerc who made very sure Max wasn’t getting passed. RBR seem optimistic. I am very curious. Also what Ferrari can do. They might outqualify them all. Passing on track in Hungary is so very very hard.

yeah, I agree that Spielberg and Hockenheim didn't reflect a change, but in Silverstone (especially in the Qualifying) Red Bull and Ferrari were way closer than what I expected. A couple of races ago, Mercedes would have taken pole by half a second.

[MtthsMlw]

I hope Qualifying is dry, I love seeing the cars fyling through turn 4. One of my favorite corners in the season.