![]() Having crashed up and down the gearbox around the Hungaroring in a humble hire car myself, quite how the world’s best manage it in 200mph speeding monsters is a constant source of amazement. The Hungaroring is rarely used so drivers have to play a potentially ruinous guessing game over how much the grip has improved lap on lap. GettyĪdded to the demanding topography is the oppressive mid-July sun battering the heart of central Europe.ĭrivers can sweat away anything up to three kilos in two hours while the power units have to survive relentless temperatures with minimum cooling at such (relatively) slow speeds and brakes reaching a scorching 1,000º Celsius.Īdding to those demands is a swiftly evolving track surface as more rubber is laid down. Max Verstappen after winning the Austrian Grand Prix at Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, on July 2, 2023. ![]() The pit straight lasts just around 10 seconds and is barely any respite for drivers continually wrestling at the wheel in a double layer of fireproof nomex and suffocating heat. Its 4.4 kilometres loops in and out of a natural bowl so the result is often a breathlessly hot valley that tortures man and machinery across 70 of the toughest laps of the season. The Hungaroring, half an hour up the M3 from Budapest, is something akin to a snaking kart circuit where plenty can go wrong. And they would do well to remember that McLaren’s run was ended by the vagaries of fate and the fumblings of Williams’ stand-in driver Jean-Louis Schlesser. ![]() Of course, Verstappen and Perez are no Senna and Prost. They set a benchmark that defied Michael Schumacher and Ferrari in their pomp, Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel’s four-title run and, indeed, Mercedes when they were winning everything in sight with Lewis Hamilton. Racer Media & Marketing, Inc., 17030 Red Hill Avenue, Irvine, CA 92614, not for nothing are the champions now poised to break one of the toughest records in F1.Ī triumph by either Verstappen or teammate Sergio Perez will be the 12th in a row by the Milton Keynes operation, topping a record set by Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren in 1988 in what is generally regarded as one of the greatest seasons in the sport’s history. Your use of this website constitutes acceptance of our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form without prior authorization. However, Red Bull did not lodge an appeal before the window to do so expired.Īll contents copyright © 2023, Racer Media & Marketing, Inc. One thing that we desperately want is just consistency.” These decisions are so late, the team management have to focus on the qualifying. We’ll have a look at the information we have, we haven’t looked at it that closely. It feels a little inconsistent with what we’ve seen two weeks ago,” he said. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be - hopefully it isn’t a gearbox penalty as that would be especially brutal.”Ī gearbox penalty would drop Verstappen five positions on the grid, but a lack of a penalty for Lewis Hamilton earlier on Saturday - when he was alleged to have ignored double waved yellow flags in FP3 - left Horner bemused. We’re on the back foot here and was pulling something very special out of the bag. It was a great shame as it was a mighty, mighty lap. He said he touched the wall and that was that. “Pretty brutal, let’s hope the gearbox isn’t damaged and we’ll see what we can do tomorrow. You’re trying to keep the momentum… He could see on his dash he was more than a quarter of a second up going into the corner and unfortunately he’s run out of road. He just grabbed the front into the last corner there. “It was looking like the lap of the year,” Horner told Sky Sports. ![]() ![]() The contact damaged the right-rear corner of Verstappen’s car and forced him to stop. Verstappen had set the fastest first two sectors on his final lap and looked set to take pole position with a special effort before he hit the wall on the exit of the final corner, having gone in too deep. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes Max Verstappen was on “the lap of the year” before his crash at the end of qualifying at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and is worried about gearbox damage that could force the team to take a grid penalty for a replacement. ![]()
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