Hot, very hot indeed, the first free practice session of the Hungarian Grand Prix, where the asphalt even reached 60 degrees. A situation that clearly puts the tires and power units to the test, which need all the cooling possible, also given the absence of long straight sections at high speed. The Budapest track is, in fact, a continuous right and left at medium-low speeds, which gives neither the drivers nor the cars any respite and represents an interesting technical test from many points of view, especially by virtue of the updates we have seen on the cars for this event, in particular for Ferrari and Red Bull.
Ferrari good grip in corners and limited degradation in the long run
The Maranello team’s weekend starts off on the right foot this time. The “Barcelona” package should have already guaranteed good performance on the Hungarian track, given the increase in load at low speeds and the almost total absence of very high-speed corners on this track, but the changes seem to have also given something more in the few fastest sections. The result was seen above all with Carlos Sainz, once again more at ease than Leclerc right from the start with the car, who showed a consistent and constant performance both in the qualifying simulation and in high fuel load conditions. The cornering speed of the SF24 is the most noteworthy thing about this first session, with very high minimum speeds for Sainz in almost all the corners of the track as we can see from the data.
Note the difference in the graphs between Verstappen and Sainz, with two cars that express similar performances but in very different ways. Sainz has more speed in the middle of the corner, while Verstappen tends to have to drive with a more “V” style, braking deep into the corner, turning with a very tight angle and then returning to the accelerator sooner, so much so that he often recovers the disadvantage in the corner with better traction. Beyond the effectiveness on the time, the stability in the longer low-speed corners is a good indicator of performance for Ferrari, which hopes to be able to play a leading role in the positions that count this weekend, perhaps the last real chance for the red team before the summer break, considering Spa as a potentially adverse track.
RedBull: Lots of balance changes for the new package
One particular thing that has been noticed at Red Bull is a particularly wide spectrum of configurations tested by Verstappen at the front, evidently to find the best “matching” with the new rear of the RB20. In the various attempts we have seen laps with a balance very shifted towards the front axle, and others with the Dutchman forced to struggle with a bit of understeer, confirming the search for the best balance of the load on the longitudinal axis of the car. In his best lap Verstappen shows, in addition to this driving style that tends to shorten the time in the corner as much as possible, also an excellent passage in the sequence of changes of direction between turn 7 and turn 9, confirming a good reactivity of the car. We will see in the second session how the work will continue at Red Bull, given the enormous importance of the package brought to the track this weekend aimed at finding the right path of development.
Mercedes Close, McLaren Hidden for Now
We also collected data from Mercedes (which you can find in the graph) and McLaren, and as far as the former is concerned we can say that the distance from Ferrari in terms of general performance is certainly not large, except in some specific sections of the track such as turn 1, turn 4 and the exit of turn 9. Obviously, since it is only the first session, it is very likely that there is still a need for fine-tuning and that therefore the Brackley team will also be a candidate for the positions that count, after having already found pole on this track last season. McLaren, on the other hand, still appeared very conservative, especially on the Power Unit front. In fact, we noticed that all the teams have already started the weekend in a particularly conservative way in terms of power, as is normal to expect given the temperatures, but in this area the Woking team appeared even more conservative than the competition.
Ferrari still has a good race pace, high degradation for everyone
Finally, in the short race pace simulations shown on the track, Ferrari once again shone with Sainz, with a degradation curve completely similar to the competition, but carried forward with faster times. Note the strategy of Piastri, who starts the stint particularly slowly and then finds more performance at the end. Leclerc, on hard tyres, finds a crescendo final stint, while it is clear to everyone that a cooling lap brings immediate advantages on the performance of the tyres, incredibly stressed by the very high temperatures. We will therefore see what will happen in the second session for what appears to be a particularly interesting weekend.
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