Paul Hembery: “Hungary certainly couldn’t be more different to the races we have seen recently, as we found out when we went to the Hungaroring for our first season of the GP3 series last year. However, as the GP3 tyres are completely different to those we race in Formula One, there’s not much that we learned apart from an initial idea of what to expect: high temperatures and a slippery track surface. The big challenge for the teams and drivers is going to be keeping tyre wear under control in the warm conditions, but we have used the P Zero Yellow soft tyre in warm weather before and it has shown good performance. The supersoft tyre is almost certain to result in some quick qualifying laps but obviously it doesn’t have the same resistance to wear. How the teams juggle the parameters of speed and durability will once again form the key to their different strategies. There has been plenty of drama at the Hungaroring in the past and with so many new elements to the racing this year, I hope we’re in for another exciting grand prix. ”
Vitaly Petrov (Lotus Renault GP): “We had plenty of good potential in Monaco and Canada, both of which have similar characteristics to the Hungaroring, so I’m hopeful of another good race in Hungary. Canada was slightly different, because we used the wet and intermediate tyres, which should not be the case in Hungary, but our performance on this type of circuit is good. One of our biggest challenges so far this season has been to get up to speed with the tyres straight away in free practice, so that we are well prepared for qualifying. This will be even more important than usual in Hungary, where it is easy to have understeer but quite difficult to overtake. We will also need to understand how long we are able to run on the supersoft, which is going to be a crucial part of the strategy for everyone. So far the Pirelli tyres have been fun to drive and the performance has been good when we get the best out of them – like when I was on the podium in Australia at the start of the year – but in general I think we need to find a bit more consistency.”
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