28/07/2011
So here we are in Eastern (well, some would say Central) Europe. Budapest, Hungary. The curtain fully drawn for over twenty years now, and a Grand Prix hosted for twenty-five, Budapest is a place bursting with energy and an eagerness to impress. It has an eagerness to be noticed like few other places in this part of the world.
Someone recently told me that he’d never seen a city change in such a drastic hurry. Well, that’s Budapest alright. Granted, the archetypal communist apartment blocks still lurk with their gloomy presence in the suburbs as you drive in. There’s still some questionable (and dated) fashion statements out there but, above all, Budapest has risen above this. It has said “I want to be western, I want to be taken seriously”. And it is taken seriously.
Hungary’s capital city is home to some 2.1 million people and it is estimated that an extra 20 million tourists visit the city each year; a number of which will be at the Hungaroring circuit this weekend for the country’s showpiece motorsport event.
The city just loves its motorsport and, with a healthy number of Russians living here, we can expect our very own Vitaly Petrov to count highly on the fanometer chart. The race is very much part and parcel of the annual F1 calendar, and it is hard to imagine it removed in the near future; it gives this part of Europe its only slice of the F1 pie and it is not a taste that this city would want to forgo.
Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher have all won here. The tight and twisting Hungaroring is sure to provide Budapest with a very worthy winner this weekend; it’s not a track to produce winners be default. Victory here is something that needs to be well-earned.
Credit: Lotus Renault GP (www.lotusrenaultgp.com)
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