The Hungarian Grand Prix is the 13th round of the 2022 Formula One championship and will be the last race until the summer break. After the Hungaroring event, other nine races remain this season, taking to the total for the season to 22, as the Russian Grand Prix was cancelled. Scuderia Ferrari heads to Budapest for what will be another very hot weekend at the Hungaroring.
Diego Ioverno, Ferrari Head of Vehicle Operation, outlines the key challenges ahead of the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring, in a short interview for the Maranello team’s official website:
What is your role and how did you come to be passionate about motorsport and, of course, Ferrari?
Diego Ioverno: “Ever since I was a kid I was mad about almost all sports and, as I come from Bologna, that had to mean being passionate about Ferrari. I was somewhat obsessed about the road cars as well as the racing ones, seeing them for real or on television. When I had to decide what to study, I had no doubt about going down the path that would let me get close to this world. On the day I graduated in engineering, I was lucky to be called to Ferrari for the first of a series of interviews and I started working at the Gestione Sportiva in May 2000. Today, my job involves coordinating a group of engineers and mechanics that looks after development, testing, the build of the Formula 1 cars and their use on track. The people I work with assemble the gearbox, chassis, the suspension, brake and hydraulic systems for the homologation stage, as well as the bench test phase and for their use on track. We also see to the parts we supply to our customer teams. Then, there’s the track operations, including pit stops, which is also within our remit”.
Tell us about the Hungaroring track characteristics?
Diego Ioverno: “The Hungaroring is a regular fixture on the Formula 1 calendar, given that we have been racing here for almost 40 years. It is always held in the height of summer, most commonly around mid-August. It is usually very hot, but there can also be sudden and heavy storms. It is a slow track and like Monaco and Singapore, it is very difficult to overtake and generally, the cars are run in maximum downforce configuration to deal with the many slow corners. It’s a short track and the type of corners, the track surface, combined with the high temperatures, make it demanding on tyres, so Pirelli has chosen the compounds from the middle of the range – C2, C3 and C4. That’s why, even if overtaking is not easy, one tyre stop is generally not enough in the race”.
After last Sunday in France, this is another very hot race. The whole car, including the gearbox is under stress because of this. What can be done to alleviate that?
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Diego Ioverno: “From a temperature point of view, the Hungaroring is potentially more difficult than France as there are far fewer straights where components such as the radiators for the power unit, the gearbox oil, the brakes and other parts that require cooling, can benefit from as much airflow as possible. While it’s true that this is not a track where high average power is needed per lap and so there is less energy to dissipate, it’s still something that cannot be taken for granted. Therefore, it will be important to choose the optimal cooling levels for reliability and performance after Friday, when we will check the correlation between real data and the modelling and simulation which, as always, are used to prepare for each event. Managing the heat of the tyres in the sunny conditions will also be very important”.
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