Kamui Kobayashi: “I have good memories of Budapest from last year. I started from 23rd on the grid and was able to overtake quite a few competitors and end up ninth. It was really a brilliant race. It’s a very technical track with mainly medium speed and slow corners. The straight is quite short, therefore in the past it was very difficult to overtake, but this year we have the DRS which will help us to put on a more exciting race for the fans. Often the temperatures in Budapest are very high, so tyre management will be crucial and tricky. But so far this season our car has been quite kind to its tyres, so we should be in a strong position to score a good result.”
Sergio Pérez: “To me the Hungaroring is a very good, technical and slow circuit. Traction and braking stability are very important. It is physically pretty demanding, and it has a really nice atmosphere. I believe it should be a good track for us, and I definitely want to score points there before the summer break. Last year I was fighting for the GP2 championship at the Hungaroring, and I must admit it wasn’t such a good weekend. I finished third in the first race, but crashed in the second. Off the track I also like the city a lot, as it is a very nice and enjoyable place to be.”
James Key, Technical Director: “The Hungaroring is a long established circuit which the teams know well. It’s a fairly low speed track with lots of medium and low speed corners, but all of them are quite flowing rather than stop start. It’s one of the high downforce circuits during the year. Not as high as Monaco, but certainly higher than the majority of circuits. It’s one of those tracks which is either a favourite of teams and drivers or not. But generally for me it’s a place I enjoy going to. It will be an interesting event because we will have the soft and super soft tyre compounds, which we haven’t run since Canada. These are tyres which I think will work very well there. It is usually fairly hot there, so the ambient and track temperatures play a role in the way the tyres work and how you have to operate your car. It’s also a track which has never been particularly easy for overtaking, so qualifying and race strategy will probably play quite an important part. If the temperatures are high, and tyre degradation is also high we could well see a number of different strategies being played out. We will have the same configuration of car as at the Nürburgring because it’s only one week later, but we feel it’s probably a circuit where the car could work well with the right conditions, and we are looking forward to going there.”
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