Hungary 2011 - GP Preview - Ferrari

With 19 races on this year’s Formula 1 calendar, some point during last weekend’s German Grand Prix marked the mathematical mid-point of the season. However, psychologically, it will be after this coming Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix that the F1 workers will breathe a collective sigh at the thought of a mid-term break. After the race in Budapest, there are three weekends without a race and all the team factories have to comply with a mandatory shutdown period. Scuderia Ferrari personnel will therefore be keen to maintain the momentum that has seen Fernando Alonso take a win in the British Grand Prix followed by a second place in the German event. Going into the break on the back of a good Hungarian race would be the perfect start to the holiday.

Of the twenty five Hungarian Grands Prix held to date, Ferrari has won five times and Team Principal Stefano Domenicali has particularly fond memories of two of those victories. “In 2001 and 2004 we won the championship there, even though it was still only the middle of the season, which meant the rest of those seasons was like one long celebration,” he recalled. “But there were also bad times, such as the dramatic experience in 2009 when Felipe had that accident. I remember the time in the hospital immediately afterwards as something I will never forget. But now, let’s look forward and I hope we can have some other cause for celebration this weekend. One of the aspects of our performance in Germany that impressed me the most was the fact we were very competitive in those very cold conditions, which shows we have made progress. Now, in Budapest, we can expect much warmer weather and Pirelli is supplying its Soft and Supersoft tyres, which we know have always suited us best.” In the past, the Hungarian GP has often been somewhat processional, as it has no less than sixteen corners crammed into its 4.381 kilometres. The turns are predominantly slow or medium speed, although without much heavy braking, which has worked against overtaking. However, this year’s race might be a different story, as we have seen the DRS work its magic at several venues this year. In addition, it will be the first time this year that the Soft and Supersofts will have dealt with temperatures in the high twenties and their durability in these conditions could produce some interesting strategic choices.

“Germany was a very positive weekend for us, because we have shown that, once again, as in the last few races, we have been very competitive,” affirms the Scuderia’s Head of Track Operations, Diego Ioverno. “Clearly, we are in better shape than at the start of the season. We are always racing to win so we cannot be completely happy with the result at the Nurburgring, especially as we also had a problem on Felipe’s car at the final pit stop. However, it was good to see us fighting for the win, up against McLaren and Red Bull and it was interesting to see how the balance of power among the teams is changing a bit, which means we can play our part from here to the end of the season.”

On Sunday at the Nurburgring, the Scuderia Ferrari crew pulled off five pit stops that could be described as almost perfect and one – Felipe’s third and last - where there was a problem. “Since the beginning of the year we have had various issues with pit stops, which we are currently fixing step by step, knowing that this year, with so many stops, anything can happen and indeed we have seen other teams also experience difficulties in this area,” admits Ioverno. “Our issues concerned the car itself and the jig of the tools we use and especially the wheel nuts, where we have had several problems. Silverstone was the first race we ran with a completely new specification of wheel nut, which has been very interesting, because in the British Grand Prix, our pit stops were the quickest in the race. Then, in Germany we were again using this new wheel nut, which does work better, but the system is still not perfect and, at Felipe’s last tyre change, we lost the connection between the wheel nut and wheel nut gun, which cost us around one and a half seconds. So we have more work to do on perfecting it.”

Already on Friday, the two 150º Italias will join the other twenty two cars on track in Hungary. “As all back to back races, the move from one track to another is quite complicated from a logistical point of view,” adds Ioverno. “The cars were stripped down on Sunday evening in the Nurburgring garages to check all the parts and to see if there were any problems highlighted by studying the car data. Then, some components had to go back to Maranello for a more detailed inspection and rebuild before being shipped to Budapest. The majority of the team travelled directly from Germany to Hungary, with others heading back to Maranello first.”