Paul Hembery: “Because of the mixed conditions up to today, the teams were still lacking dry running with the soft tyre on full fuel heading into the race, so they all started with a number of question marks. The degradation on both compounds proved to be good, with only a few tenths of a second per lap difference between the soft and the medium tyres, which gave the teams a number of options in terms of strategy and allowed them to take a flexible approach.
“Lewis Hamilton’s pace in qualifying meant that he was able to save a set of soft tyres for the race, which he made the most of to pull out an impressive lead – although he had to fight to keep it at the end. As usual we saw that overtaking was very difficult at the tight Hungaroring, meaning that the teams tried to use pit stop strategy to get past their rivals. The variety of strategies meant that we had a very close finish once again, despite the fact that cars following each other closely tend to increase tyre wear, as they slide more in the dirty air. We’ve had an unforgettable first half to the 2012 season, with one of the closest starts ever where the tyres have definitely made a difference, so we’re already looking forward to the rest of the year.”
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