Ferrari’s struggles lead Hungarian Grand Prix storylines

Photo by Jayce Illman/Getty Images

Plus, thoughts on McLaren’s learning opportunities, why Saturday is critical, and more

Formula 1 returns with this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

The first half of the 2024 campaign has been filled with some incredible moments, including Lando Norris finally tasting victory, Charles Leclerc finally tasting victory at home, and Lewis Hamilton finally tasting victory again.

What might the second half hold in store?

A trip to the Hungaroring kicks it all off. Here are the key storylines for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

Can Ferrari bounce back?

Sometimes a picture truly is worth 1,000 words.

Such as this one:

Courtesy of Formula 1 Points, here is the points progression for each of the top four teams in the F1 Constructors’ Championship standings. As you can see, following Charles Leclerc’s win in his home race — casting off years of heartbreak in the Monaco Grand Prix — Ferrari was just 24 points behind Red Bull.

Since then, however, Ferrari has added just 50 points over the four race weekends since Monaco. That has allowed McLaren and Mercedes to pull closer to them, and Red Bull to pull further away.

Can Ferrari right the ship?

If they do, it will start with a week spent learning what has worked, and perhaps more importantly what has not worked, with the upgrade package the team rolled out for the SF-24 as the tripleheader began. Since then both Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. have lacked complete confidence in the car, Leclerc in particular. “We are just slow. We are just really slow at the moment and we have a lot of inconsistencies with the car,” said Leclerc after a shocking exit in Q2 at Silverstone. “I don’t think it quite helps that we are trying to also… we are trying to just assess the situation we are in at the moment and try to understand which are the directions in which we need to push into.”

Ferrari had an extra week to figure things out with the SF-24. Were they able to find the answers they need?

Will McLaren have learned their lessons?

A year ago McLaren was fighting for podiums.

Now they are fighting for wins, and maybe even a championship.

But life is tougher at the front, and every decision adds up, whether good or bad. The past two race weekends have exemplified that and illustrated the learning that McLaren needs to do to emerge victorious in these fights.

Take the Austrian Grand Prix, which is an example of some of the micro-level learning McLaren needs to win at the front. Lando Norris was battling with Max Verstappen, who has been fighting at the front for years now. The result of this particular Norris-Verstappen clash? A wheel touch in the late stages knocked both drivers from contention, and Norris out of the race entirely.

Then there was the British Grand Prix. As has been discussed here and elsewhere McLaren was in position for a potential one-two finish, as Norris was running at the front with teammate Oscar Piastri behind him. But from there several strategy calls went awry, starting with the decision to pit Piastri for a set of intermediate tires one lap after pitting Norris for the same change.

That dropped Piastri down the field, and while he recovered for a fourth-place finish, he knew immediately the decision cost him a chance for more.

Then there was the call later in the race when the team brought Norris in to make the switch from the intermediates to a set of slicks. Norris was in the lead, ahead of Lewis Hamilton, but Mercedes brought Hamilton in one lap ahead of Norris to make the same change. When Norris pitted on the subsequent lap he overshot his spot by a few feet, leading to a slot stop. He pulled out of McLaren’s single pit stall — Silverstone has just one stall per team, which was why they did not double-stack Norris and Piastri earlier — and tried in vain to come out ahead of Hamilton, but he could only watch the silver W15 rocket by him and take the lead.

The final mistake? Bolting a set of softs on Norris’ MCL38. The degradation level was such that not only did Norris fail to catch Hamilton to retake the lead, but he could not hold off the hard-charging Verstappen, who was on a set of hards.

“I think going on soft wasn’t the right call for us,” McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella admitted after the race.

Since the British Grand Prix, several outlets have highlighted just how many potential points McLaren lost over those two race weekends, and how different the standings could look had things gone differently. But what is done is done, and the challenge facing McLaren now is whether they will learn the right lessons from those weekends and apply those learnings going forward.

Their first chance to show us what they’ve learned is this weekend.

Who wins Sunday on Saturday?

What is the most common nickname for the Hungaroring?

“Monaco without the barriers.”

The circuit is a tight and twisty track, with lots of turns and not much in the way of straights. Teams run Monaco-level downforce packages for the Hungarian Grand Prix, as Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu outlined in the team’s media preview on Monday. “Budapest is a high-downforce circuit with short straights. It’s basically Monaco-esque with the downforce so we’re bringing of course the Monaco level of downforce and combining that with the Silverstone update. I know in Monaco we were quick on the straights, but with the upgrades of course we’ve improved our aero downforce, so I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do in Hungary,” said the Haas boss.

What else is critical in Hungary?

Qualifying.

Like Monaco, if you want to win the Hungarian Grand Prix, you best start up front.

“[Hungary] will be a very different challenge to Silverstone as qualifying is everything,” said Komatsu. “It’s very, very difficult to overtake around the Hungaroring, so you put more emphasis on qualifying.”

That might be good news for both Ferrari and McLaren. While some things have changed since the Monaco Grand Prix at the end of May, Charles Leclerc secured pole position in Monaco with Oscar Piastri starting behind him, while Carlos Sainz Jr. qualified third, and Lando Norris fourth. Beyond those four drivers, George Russell put his W15 up in fifth, while Max Verstappen settled for a sixth-place start.

Which drivers and teams have the best Saturdays will go a long way towards determining who has the best Sunday.

Will temperatures be a factor?

A year ago, the Hungarian Grand Prix was marked by high temperatures. On Sunday the air temperature reached 28 degrees Celsius, and the corresponding track temperature of 53 degrees Celsius was the highest recorded track temperature during the entire 2023 F1 season.

Things could be even hotter this weekend.

Current forecasts are calling for temperatures in the 34-degree Celsius range for Sunday, as Hungary is in the middle of a blistering heatwave that has been impacting the region. The heat forced a Hungarian airport to close last week, as the concrete surface of the runway at the city of Debrecen International Airport expanded, damaging two concrete slabs.

What might this mean for the teams this weekend?

Difficulties getting the tires into the right window, and keeping them there.

The layout of the circuit is demanding enough on the tires, given the high levels of downforce, but consider qualifying. Take a look at how the lap ends:

The third sector of the lap has the short straight from Turn 11 into Turn 12, which starts a pair of 180-degree turns before the long straight that runs from Turn 14 through the Start/Finish line and into Turn 1. As Pirelli, F1’s exclusive tire supplier, wrote in their media preview of the Hungarian Grand Prix, this is asking a lot of the tires — and the drivers — at the end of a push lap. “Overheating is therefore a factor that needs to be kept under control, not just in the race but also in qualifying: on the softest compound a driver must manage to get to the last two 180° corners of a flying lap with enough grip left, which is no mean feat, as the short straight sections of track do not give the tires much time to breathe,” outlined Pirelli in their media preview.

With Saturday a critical qualifying season given how hard overtaking is at the Hungarioring, teams might be watching the weather as much as they are the action on the track.

Will the trophies survive the podium this year?

Last year’s podium celebration — featuring Norris and Verstappen — offered one of the more humorous moments of the season.

As Norris celebrated his second-place finish, he slammed his bottle of sparkling wine on Verstappen’s podium to pop the bottle open.

That knocked the custom-made and hand-painted porcelain trophy off Verstappen’s podium, and the top shattered in the fall:

The company that crafted the trophy for the Hungarian Grand Prix, Herend Porcelánmanufaktúra Zrt., manufactured a new trophy for Verstappen, and Norris joined the Red Bull driver for a second trophy presentation.

Where he received an “invoice:”

Will the hand-made trophies survive the podium celebration this year?