There is an unmistakably buoyant atmosphere in Budapest when Formula One hits town, the Hungaroring having long since lost its reputation for hosting a joyless procession. Nowadays, there is often a decent race to be had at the Hungarian Grand Prix, a meeting where Lewis Hamilton has enjoyed unparalleled success but where this year there is an acknowledgment that he and Mercedes are unlikely to be contributing to the party on the Danube come Sunday night.
Hamilton has won here a record eight times and the successes have spanned his 17-year career; he won in Budapest as a rookie in 2007. He also took his debut victory for Mercedes at the Hungaroring in 2013, a win he felt vindicated his decision, much questioned at the time, to leave McLaren.
Adding to that tally and becoming the first driver to win nine races at the same circuit is a distant dream this weekend. After McLaren demonstrated an enormous improvement in the last round at Silverstone, Hamilton was blunt in his assessment of Mercedes making similar steps.
“Anything’s possible, but I don’t think we have a plan of that sort of leap in place at the moment,” he said of the immediate prospects for the W14. The team had adopted its new design philosophy for the car at the Monaco GP and it has seen an improvement. Hamilton has scored three podiums since Monaco but the gap to Red Bull remains a chasm and in Hungary the British driver suggested the sheer complexity of the task facing his team was not fully appreciated.
The challenge of the new regulations imposed in 2022 is one Red Bull have solved to extraordinary effect. Max Verstappen is dominant, enjoying a 99-point lead and, with the team unleashing a swathe of upgrades, likely to extend it further.
Mercedes know the performance is there but unlocking it (specifically in downforce through the fiendishly complex vagaries of ground-effect aerodynamics) was, Hamilton conceded, no easy task and one compounded by the limitations of the budget cap.
“All those vortices would blow your mind if you saw what’s happening underneath the car,” he said. “Which is a lot different to the previous generations of cars. Working through that just takes time. You’re very limited with resources as well. So you have to be careful which decisions you make. I wish it was faster but unfortunately, it is not.”
The team principal, Toto Wolff, has declared the car another diva, unpredictable and hard to manage, and said they will shortly shift their focus on to next year’s model.
The step made by McLaren, notably through high-speed corners where it could take advantage at Silverstone but which will be far less in evidence though the succession of slow-speed corners at the Hungaroring, will nonetheless be an impetus for Mercedes.
There are improvements to come but for Hamilton there was a distinct air of frustration that the pace of progress was interminably slow. They are perhaps looking to next year’s meeting in Hungary as the one where Hamilton could shine once more.
“Things are in the pipeline for many races to come, and that’s always the case because it takes time to build things,” he said. “We had a great meeting just the other day where we had all the heads of departments within the room. There was great communication and we have 100% faith in them. I think, just as a group, we will get to where we need to be. It is just going to take some time.”
On track the pressure on Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez ramped up a notch when the Mexican crashed out after only two laps in first practice. George Russell led the first session for Mercedes but with very limited running due to rain.
In the second practice session, Charles Leclerc was quickest from McLaren’s Lando Norris. Verstappen was in 11th and Hamilton 16th as the teams adjusted their running according to the new limited tyre allocations being trialled in Hungary. Daniel Ricciardo, in his first meeting on returning to the grid, was 14th for AlphaTauri.
