Everything is ready for the race – Hungaroring president
Hungary, the small, but famous East-European country is well prepared to this weekend's Grand Prix, according to the circuit's President Zsolt Gyulay. The Hungaroring, situated just outside Hungary's capital, Budapest, has gone through different renewals for this year.
Speaking to F1technical.net's Balazs Szabo, Zsolt Gyulay, the President of Hungaroring proved optimistic for the 31st Grand Prix at the now traditional East-European track, confirming ticket sales this year are similar to last years, despite the action-packed summer.
“We have reached the numbers from last year despite the fact that our situation is far from lucky. Our target audience is the same to the people who travel to the European Football Championship and the Olympics."
"Many (Hungarian) fans cannot afford two or three big sporting events in summer. There are many Germans of the foreign visitors and the German GP will take place just a week after our (race).”
Hungary has always been attractive for many thanks to its capital, but also due to its relatively low prices and its easily reachable location. The number of foreign fans usually exceeds those of the domestic visitors.
“ The rate of Hungarian-foreign visitors was approximately 20-80 per cent over the past years,” revealed the former kayak champion.
Hungary is hosting the Hungarian GP for the 31st time this weekend and it managed it without any interruptions. This is remarkable considering the uncertainty around traditional events like Silverstone, Monza or the German GP. The small country made its breakthrough with its unique status of being the first country to host a GP behind the Iron Curtain. It has showed great professionalism in terms of organisation which secured its status on the F1 calendar.
“Hungaroring is now a traditional track which became a virtue. Drivers love visiting us because the capital is nearby, so does the organisational team because everything works flawlessly in terms of sporting and organizational means. On top of that we had one of the most interesting races regarding the sporting action during the past years.”
Hungaroring extended its commercial deal with F1 this spring which means Hungary is going to host races until at least 2026. The track which was built back in 1986 faces constant modernisation process. For this year the track layout was updated to follow trends dictated by modern tracks.
“Next to the resurfacing we changed the kerbs, we laid down a new asphalt layer in the run off area around the first corner where we also renewed the transfer barriers. In accordance with the FIA requirements we built new catch fences and we also changed the ragged clear poly-carbonate, unbreakable panels to gratings all along the pit wall," concluded Gyulay.
