Hungary 2016 - GP Preview - Manor Mercedes

Pascal, we’re at the halfway point of your debut season. One last push until the summer break.

“Well, for me, I could just keep on racing - you never get tired of that as a driver. But for the team, they deserve a bit of rest after a really busy first half of the season. These next two races are really good ones so, if anything, things will be hotting up for me, rather than calming down. The Hungarian Grand Prix is always an exciting event and then of course it’s my home Grand Prix - the one I’ve been most looking forward to. It will also be the busiest so far for me, so maybe after that a little break will be nice. I intend to enjoy it.”

After the joy of Austria a few races ago, you’re back on familiar asphalt once again.

“Yes, I’ve only raced at the Hungaroring once before, but obviously many times at the Hockenheimring. Both are great tracks for different reasons and of course Germany will have a special significance as the first home race of my F1 career. First of many, I hope! Knowing a race track does have its advantages but, really, we push just as hard at every track we race at.”

Rio, a positive test at Silverstone last week. Does that leave you better prepared for the next couple of races?

“Absolutely. We made good progress during the test, working through our new developments and some of those will be introduced here this weekend. There will be some short and long-term gains, so the effect will be step by step, but I think this will help us to continue closing the gap to the midfield pack.”

Do you enjoy the Hungaroring circuit?

“I enjoy everything about Hungary, and especially the circuit. I won here in 2011 in GP3 – with the Manor Racing GP3 team in fact! I arrived here two days ago, so I’ve had plenty of time to adjust to the high temperatures that we have here at the moment, and to explore the city a bit. I’ve been here a few times now and it seems to get better and better every year. From GP2 I know this is a really interesting and technically challenging circuit. It’s pretty relentless, in that you don’t get much time to catch your breath during the lap. It requires maximum concentration at pretty much every turn if you really want to put a good lap together, but when you do, it’s actually a lot of fun.”

Dave, looking forward to the summer break?

“I think everyone has that particular target in their sights! It’s been a busy year so far and I want everyone to get some quality R&R, so we can really attack the second half of the season. In the meantime though, we have two great events to look forward to and they’re also pretty important, requiring our full focus. Hungary is always a fantastic Grand Prix and we’ll be debuting some of the developments we tested at the Silverstone test last week. Germany is Pascal’s home race and that of our powertrain partner Mercedes HPP, so naturally we’ll be keen to deliver the best possible performance in front of the ‘family’.”