Formula 1

Williams targeting overdue points as F1 calendar moves to Budapest

Motorsport Technology
28 Jul 2021
3 min read

The Williams Racing F1 team, partnered by Acronis, will be doing everything in their power to finally break their 2021 points duck as the calendar moves to Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

So fat it has been a cause of what might have been, George Russell narrowly missing out on several top ten finishes after his superb qualifying performances that have twice seen him progress through to Q3.

“I’m really looking forward to heading to Hungary this weekend,” commented Russell in his team’s race preview. “The Hungaroring is a circuit that I love, especially the second sector; it’s fast and flowing, and you don’t get a break from turn four to turn 11, but when the car is nailed it’s such a fantastic feeling to really extract everything from that sequence of corners.

“Budapest is a city that I really enjoy too, it has such a great atmosphere. I am going to be giving it my everything to make sure we end the first half of the season strongly, especially coming off the back of a number of strong races recently.”

The 4.381km Hungaroring circuit located on the outskirts of Budapest provides many happy memories for the famous Williams team, notably Nelson Piquet’s victory in the inaugural 1986 race, Damon Hill’s first F1 win in 1993 and Jacques Villeneuve’s last lap overtake on his former teammate in 1997 when Hill slowed with a problem in his Arrows.

“The short twisty Hungaroring is a stark contrast to the fast-flowing Silverstone track, but it nonetheless offers an exciting challenge,” added Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance. “Overtaking is very difficult, which places a premium on qualifying position. The weather in Budapest in late July is typically very hot and this makes tyre management difficult and therefore heavily dictates the set-up direction.

“Following the Sprint Qualifying format two weeks ago in Great Britain, we return to a standard event format this weekend, which gives us more opportunity to tune the car set-up to the tyre behaviour.

“In recent years we have been reasonably strong in Budapest and we hope to continue the trend this year. The FW43B has been performing well recently and if we can adapt it to the longer, slower corners of the Hungaroring then we will be in a good position to get the most from the tyres, which this week are the middle-of-the-range: C2, C3 and C4 compounds.

“The new rear tyre construction, which Pirelli introduced at the British Grand Prix behaved as expected and should be well suited to the Budapest track.”

 

Acronis are proud to be the official Cyber Protection Partner of the Williams Racing F1 team. To find out more, please visit https://www.acronis.com/en-us/lp/msp-sports/

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