Hungarian GP Preview: Is the 2011 Championship a foregone conclusion?

Or has the title fight just come alive?

And so we arrive at round 11 of the 2011 World Championship: the Hungarian Grand Prix. Budapest is usually a race that is dreaded due to its tight and twisty nature; it can often be a bore fest. This year however, fans believe F1 may be coming alive this weekend if the recent run of form is anything to go by.

Despite having pole position in the last two races, Red Bull’s ailing race pace means they have not converted either one into a win. The honours went to Alonso/Ferrari (at Silverstone), and Hamilton/McLaren (last week in Germany), which has lead some people to believe this years title race has just begun.

Since last weekend’s German Grand Prix, I have been asked the same two questions by almost every F1 fan I’ve spoken to. 1) Wasn’t that a fantastic Grand Prix? YES, is a very simple answer to that question. It was awesome in fact! 2) So do you think Vettel can be caught in the Championship now? Hmmmmm... not so sure!

The answer to the second question is tricky. Ever the optimist, if it’s mathematically possible for someone to be caught a championship battle, then I “never say never”. But let’s look at some stark facts first.

Sebastian Vettel is 77 points clear of second place man, Mark Webber. You may have heard in various F1 features on TV, “If Vettel didn’t turn up to Hungary, Belgium or Italy, he’d still be leading the championship in Singapore!” That is very true and makes you think that Seb only needs to cruise home in the top five positions for the rest of the season to become a double World Champion. But unless you’re Alain Prost, the professor, it rarely works out like that. It’s so hard to tell a driver not to go for it when an overtaking opportunity is on.

So the gap may well be huge, but what has got people talking is Sebastian’s poor show at last weekend’s German Grand Prix. In the previous 9 rounds, if Vettel was unable to win the race, he simply finished 2^nd and enjoyed the healthy batch of 18 points that goes with it. At his home race, this didn’t happen and he scraped a 4th place on the very last lap. Notable problems for Vettel were qualifying a lowly 3^rd position (by his own admission), getting overtaken by Fernando Alonso early in the race, spinning off the circuit and being unable to pass Massa without the help of some slick pit work at Red Bull. The cool and collective head we’re so use to seeing on Vettel wasn’t at the races in Germany. Fantastic!

So Red Bull has had two bad races by their very high standards. It’s widely thought this is attributed to the colder conditions we saw in Britain, and even more so in Germany where the Celsius barely hovered above single digits for most of the weekend. They seem to struggle to get the right amount of heat into their tyres in cooler conditions. The weather currently says Budapest is in for some warm weather for most of the weekend, potentially double what we saw at the Nurburgring. This in theory means the Red Bull will be back on song, much as we are use to

Updates, we have to hope for car updates from the other two teams in the hunt. If either Ferrari or McLaren can make it a hat trick of no wins for Red Bull on Sunday, I will start to believe the championship can be won by a non-fizzy drinks driver, however I fear the Bull is about to be unleashed upon us once again.

Posted by James Wilson. - Follow him on twitter @enterf1.

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