Hungarian GP – Sunday update. Well, well. My usually rock solid forecasters have for once failed me and as I write, 2 hours before the race, the pictures from Hungary show that the track is soaking wet, the skies leaden with rain clouds dropping their load. The $64000 question is, will it still be raining when the GP starts? I am afraid God alone knows and he hasn’t let me know yet (hold the front page news just in, rain has stopped with 90 minutes before the start of the race, thanks big man! Nice beard). With conditions unsettled, It is best to keep stakes small. The rainfall radar suggests that the band of rain that is currently soaking Budapest is moving fast enough to have cleared the area before the start of the race, but there is another area of rain popping up heading south roughly in line with Budapest. My own guess is that we will have a damp start, with the chance of rain during the race, but that is really just a guess! Whatever happens we will have a track cleaned of rubber and very low on grip. The tyres will be graining very badly, for both manufactures and whomever can keep their tyres in good shape will have a big advantage. It was clear that Alonso has scrubbed in all his tyres which means they have gone through a heat cycle and will be less susceptible to graining. Of course we may see one of the manufacturers having an edge but this track is one that even a really slow car can keep position. If we have a dry race, a car with badly graining tyres can just hold the right line and making getting past very difficult if not impossible. Watching the GP2 race this morning you could see Lewis Hamilton stuck behind a much slower car for lap after lap. The lay out of the track doesn’t help either. Even when he got along side his prey, the fact that corners here are close together and right/left/right/left, the car being attacked always has the racing line going into the next corner. What I am eluding to is that , wet or dry, passing here will be very difficult and track position is king. Those starting well down the field will make up places through attrition but not much by overtaking. There will be a stampede to back Schumacher this morning but I will not be amongst them. In the dry his price of 9/2 is terrible value, this is not a track that allows him to cut through the field and while he will be carrying a good dose of fuel and will pick up places at the first stop, it is very likely that the 5 cars in front of him will also be heavy on fuel and hard to pass. He might get a podium, but will need some luck to do so. In the wet, his chances are better, but I would want more than 9/2. Raikkonen is confident of victory and he gets away ahead of Massa he has a great chance, if the McLaren doesn’t let him down. However if there is a safety car incident he could find his lead wiped out and cars with more fuel aboard right behind him. As such, his odds of 13/8 (on the drift) are hardly great value. Massa has a job to do and that remains helping Schumacher by holding up the field and helping him make a jump at the first stops. If he fails to get passed Raikkonen at the start, his target will not be winning and if Schumacher gets close, he will have to drop behind his master. Barrichello and the explosive Honda? Please, do not make me laugh. Maybe in a wet race, but he will be light on fuel and likely to DNF anyway. De la Rosa? Why has he been a test driver for so long? Exactly. Webber doesn’t rate his own chances and the word reliability is not in the Williams’ vocabulary. Ralf Schumacher is an interesting runner. The car has shown good race pace recently and there was a big hint from the team that they are running to a different plan than other teams. This is likely to be more fuel and a different compound of Bridgestone. It was not good for qualifying but they are optimistic that it will be much better in the race. Ralf has shown good wet weather form in the past, so wet or dry he should have the potential to follow up his podium here in 2005 with another. 2 points Ralf Schumacher to finish on the podium @ 8/1 with Coral and Paddy Power. lost 2 points Fisichella has the car to aim for a podium finish and if he has one of his good days he could do it, but with only 3 podiums from 11 starts in a car that has won 6 times this year, shows that Fisi is not someone to invest to much faith in, and even less cash. Trulli in the other Toyota is much the same as Fisichella, promises a lot, delivers little, especially if he has any small problem. Kubica has been very impressive so far and the car better here than I expected. He will have plenty of fuel on board and I dare say Schumacher will be very wary of this new boy in front of him on the grid, especially if it is wet or damp at the start. I will take a chance on the new comer to ‘do an Irvine’ and score a point on his debut. 2 points Kubica to finish in the points @ 13/5 with Extrabet won 5.2 points Schumacher will be aiming for a flying start as overtaking is going to be so difficult during the race, but in 11th place he is right in the thick of the action as everyone tries to achieve the same result. The first corner here has produced a few first lap retirements in the past and if it were wet, you would almost expect it. Perhaps Kubica could ‘do a different sort of Irvine’ and cause a bit of chaos at the start. 1 point M. Schumacher first retirement @ 28/1 with Paddy Power. lost 1 point |
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