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28 July 2010

Lewis Hamilton will look to repeat the victory he secured last season in Hungary as F1 heads into the final race before its traditional summer break this weekend.

Hamilton’s win at the Hungaroring last year proved to be the turning point for McLaren after a difficult start to the year, with the defending champion having scored only nine points in the nine races prior to Hungary.

The Briton would go on to add another victory later in the year under lights in Singapore en-route to fifth in the championship standings and he admitted he was looking forward to returning to a circuit where he has taken two of his 13 F1 victories.

“I love racing in Hungary,” he said. “The circuit is quite a unique place – it’s got a reputation for being a slow track where it’s impossible to pass, but I don’t really agree with that.

“Firstly, the track has a couple of high-speed corners – in particular, the blind left-hander at turn four, and the right-hander at turn eleven – and, since the revisions to the first corner, it’s a place where passing is definitely possible, even if it’s not easy.

“It’s a circuit that really requires you to pull it all together – like Monaco, there’s nowhere to relax, and, because one corner always leads straight into the next, you’re really hustling the car the whole way. Which, when you’ve got a good car, is good fun.

“I’ve always gone well there – I won in 2007, and winning there last year was one of the best races of my career in terms of sheer satisfaction. The whole team was elated with that result because we’d just performed one of the greatest turnarounds in sport, coming from the back of the grid at the start of the season to take victory.”

Team-mate Jenson Button clinched his maiden win in Hungary back in 2006 while driving for Honda and said he expected McLaren to be strong, having gained vital information on its new blown diffuser in Germany last weekend.

“I won my first grand prix in Hungary – and I can still remember that race as if it was yesterday,” he said. “Actually, what I remember best were the moments after the race, when you finally realise that it’s all real, and you get to see the reactions of everyone around you. It was a great moment in my career, and one that I still savour.

“I think we go to Budapest feeling more optimistic about our pace – the team has traditionally gone well at the track, and we feel we have a high-downforce configuration that should be well-suited to the circuit. We’re learning more and more about the blown floor after every session, and I feel like we got some very useful data from Sunday’s race in Germany.

“Now it’s all about maximising our package and hopefully securing a strong result before the summer break – that would be a massive positive for everybody on the team.”