“I don’t really care, because everything that’s going on this year is a gift. Years ago, I dreamed of being on the podium, but I’ve got six podiums out of 10 races and I’m third in the world championship.” And each race is a gift. And we’ve been thinking about 2024 for months. I remember a lot of people asking me why I didn’t attack Stroll at Barcelona and why the two points were still important at the end of the championship. But I didn’t mind because I knew I was going to finish 3rd or 4th or 5th this year. It’s more important to have a good start to 2024 and have the option of owning a strong car like we did at the beginning of pre-season this year.”said Fernando Alonso in front of the Spanish press at the venue on Saturday. F1 Hungarian Grand Prixafter He was eighth in this classification, confirming that the game’s chips, which had been seen since the beginning of the season, had jumped to occupy a completely different square on the new board.

Could McLaren go from being one of the worst teams at the start of the season to being a strong podium contender and Red Bull challenger after just 10 races? And even more amazing: Six races ago, Lando Norris was 16th in the Miami rankings, while teammate Piastri was 19th. Six races later, the two McLarens overtook Alonso, confirming a big step forward on a track very different from Silverstone and Austria.McLaren’s new update package showed a lot of potential.

McLaren were not expected to also tackle the reverse layout, which has many low-speed corners. The walking car performed well on all types of circuits, and appears to be the new Aston Martin to start the year as the second best car on any type of track after the Red Bull. Or maybe it’s a Mercedes. Fast in Silverstone, fast in Hungary, opposite tracks.

One more point must be added to this. Verstappen and Red Bull have never been as close as they were at Silverstone. It was surprising that Max could not completely distance himself from Norris at a track where Red Bull had to play to its full potential. And at the Hungaroring, Mercedes scored their first pole position and Hamilton’s first in 33 races (since Jeddah in 2021).

all this, in tighter grill situations. As seen in Hungary. Qualifying was crazy. Sure, it’s a short pita and the difference is small, but it’s also unusual to see two Alfa Romeos ahead of Alonso in Q3. Alternatively, Sainz was eliminated in Q3 after 33 straight top 10 races. Equality is unheard of this Saturday, and even one in a thousand could rule you out. Hamilton beat Max by just 3,000ths and Norris by 85,000ths. The distance to the first sixth place was 3/10th of a second, and the distance to the top 10 was 0.5 seconds.

Change of rules during course

So Fernando Alonso went out and gave a speech, giving his own interpretation of what had happened. He recognized that Aston Martin had made relatively little progress this year, and that it was something the team had to grow in a new, huge factory. Newly released.again How much have other teams improved? But the Giants had strides as big as the sudden stellar performances of McLaren and Mercedes on the last two tracks, no longer plagued by the irregularities seen before in their tire performance…the whole thing was something else. Fernando is very clear about it. The situation has changed completely since the last Silverstone GP, with Pirelli and the FIA’s decision to change the tire casings midway through the (harder) track, citing safety issues.

disagreement

But regardless of Alonso’s words, there are disagreements in the paddock. In testing, each team didn’t notice much of a difference. Some believe that certain teams are benefiting now. Some believe it had no effect on the gums. Others argued that the change forced them to change certain things, and that some teams were better able to adapt to the change. On the other hand, it is unclear whether the phenomenon seen in the tires is due to the high temperatures that characterize the track, or if Pirelli has brought the softest compound in its line-up here to Budapest.

why did you change the tires?

The championship’s sole supplier, Pirelli, made the request under Article 10.8.3 of the F1 Technical Regulations.made changes to the tires that made the car perform better than expected this year, so the wheels suffered higher levels of demand than anticipated at the time of its creation. The tires for this track are designed for specific loads and forces, so the car’s performance has unexpectedly increased significantly this year compared to last year, and Pirelli wanted to act to prevent the problem.

However, after a few races, such as the Miami GP, he started to attract attention. Verstappen completed 45 laps on the hard rubber at breakneck speed. Alternatively in Baku, Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon entered the final two laps to the pits. [The Frenchman in the last picture]changed tires only because it is compulsory to change them at least once per race to put on a different compound. With that rubber, I could have made it through the race with a good pace. Did you need a stiffer tire casing?

“We saw at the opening race of the season how much the 2023 cars have improved compared to last year, thanks to the extraordinary pace of development shown by the 10 teams,” said Mario Isola, Pirelli’s head of sport.

“In Miami, for example, the pole time was about two seconds faster than last year, but similar progress was also seen during the race. Pirelli’s simulation work has always aimed not only at delivering a product that meets the performance targets specified by the stakeholders, but also at anticipating problems and responding quickly to them,” added Isola. And Pirelli’s entry into F1 is for publicity, and it would backfire if the tires showed weakness.

“The new specification includes materials that we have already developed for 2024, allowing us to increase the tire’s durability without affecting other technical parameters or its behavior on the track,” he said. However, just two races after the introduction at Silverstone, we saw a change.

Sudden change in trend and Alonso’s frustration

After that, apart from two great rulers at the beginning of the season, some teams seem to have taken a surprising step forward. Red Bull and Aston Martin. Red Bull no longer have the dominance they showed earlier (with no race pace to be seen this Sunday) and it looks like they can keep winning, but these victories are not insulting. And, apart from the car’s development slowdown, Aston Martin, which has always been a podium contender from the start, may have been affected by the change. In fact, Alonso has made it clear that these new wheels are worse for green cars than many of their rivals.

Dr. Pedro de la Rosa warned. Tire casing changes are important, and indeed Aston Martin mortgaged all of Friday’s FP1 in Barcelona to analyze the new rubber, airflow changes and what changes it might bring to the aero package. A small change can change performance completely. They knew it could affect the team. Finally, for unknown reasons, they may have experienced it physically.

Another important point is that Red Bull and Aston Martin had better degradation so they were much better from the start. This allowed them to have a phenomenal race pace as their rivals sank. Stiffer casings increase resistance, which can reduce the effectiveness of that differential element. If everyone’s deterioration is reduced, the situation will be leveled. It could have lost Aston Martin’s greatest strength. They took away his sword. Or rather, the rest of the team took away the wooden swords and gave them the steel swords they didn’t have before.

therefore, Fernando Alonso didn’t hesitate to throw a powerful ‘dart’ at what happened after this change. “When you change the height of a net, a basket ring, a soccer ball in the middle of a championship, it’s always ugly.” Alonso spoke out to the Spanish press, including MD, at the Hungaroring circuit against an experimental qualifying format that will be tested in Hungary and repeated at Monza. “It’s been terrible”He said of the ‘qualifying’ where teams had to run on hard tires in Q1, mediums in Q2 and softs in Q3, which led teams to cut back on free practice.

But, without a doubt, the controversial issue was that of the wheels. “Did some teams get half a second off with this change? But to make it clear that it wasn’t just a matter of underdevelopment, he stressed that “even Red Bull wouldn’t be very happy” with the change as he lost an advantage day by day.

It already happened in 2013 and also damaged Alonso

The tide of the game changed, as in 2013 he started to improve from mid-season on new tyres, hurting Alonso in the title fight with Red Bull. Fernando took the iron from him this time because for him this course is a ‘gift’ for six podiums. Prefer to focus on 202