Hungarian Grand Prix

The end of the beginningThe end of the beginning

2026 SEASON

Hitting the track at the Hungaroring

Not the beginning of the end, but most certainly the end of the beginning. F1's final race before the summer shutdown takes us to the banks of the Danube for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Hungaroring, on the outskirts of Budapest, is a tight, twisty, technical circuit, reminiscent of a super-sized kart track.

A flying lap of the track, with its relentless cavalcade of corners, is a breathless experience, and it is a circuit that has staged many memorable races over the years, including Fernando Alonso's maiden Grand Prix victory in 2003.

It's a great, technical circuit. If you mess one corner up, that makes the next series of corners quite difficult.

Jessica Hawkins – Driver Ambassador & Head of F1 ACADEMY

Toggle below to highlight parts of the track.

Sectors
Turns
DRS

Circuit length
4.381km
Number of corners
14
Race distance
306.630km

NEED TO KNOW: HUNGARIAN GP

The essential Budapest travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Mastering the Hungaroring

The magic of racing at the Hungaroring

Ultimate Hungarian Grand Prix facts

The essential Budapest travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

There's always an end-of-term feel about the Hungarian Grand Prix – and this is a great part of the world in which to relax and unwind.

Budapest has a rich and vibrant history, from a Roman outpost that housed Marcus Aurelius, all the way through to its Communist decades in the late 20th Century. It's been a trading crossroads and centre of European culture for thousands of years; this explains its popularity as the go-to city for movie and TV production: somewhere in the city there's a district that fits whatever historical landscape you need as a backdrop, from Romanesque architecture, through Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, all the way up to Brutalism and Bauhaus. The historic centre of the city, along the banks of the Danube is a World Heritage Site, though the many movie location tours go a long way beyond the Parliament building, opera house, Museum of Fine Arts and St. Stephen's Basilica.

One of the reasons the Romans made a provincial capital here was access to thermal springs, and the city has a long history as a spa town. Today, this is best represented by the Széchenyi Thermal Baths, located in City Park, just behind the equally famous Heroes' Square. The mix of indoor and outdoor pools are the largest medicinal baths in Europe and allow bathers to relax surrounded by neo-baroque splendour. It's a very popular location with F1 crews, keen to unknot tired muscles.

The other way to unknot tired muscles is, of course, though the city's fabulous nightlife. At the turn of the century, Budapest was eye-opening for tourists from Western Europe and the United States, but now, a generation after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it's more-or-less entirely homogenised into the European mainstream. It does, however, retain its eccentricities, one of which is the famous ruin bars dotted around the city in, formerly, abandoned buildings, particularly in the Jewish Quarter. Szimplakert is probably the most famous, Kiosk a little more upmarket.

The heart of the city is, of course, the Danube. The riverbanks offer lively nightlife, including a series of rooftop bars and restaurants – try Leo, for a view of the famous Chain Bridge – but getting out on the water is a popular pastime too, with plenty of options for dinner cruises in the evenings. For those with a few more days free than your typical F1 mechanic, the three-night river cruise to Bratislava and Vienna is a great way to ease into three weeks without F1.

Mastering the Hungaroring

The Hungaroring, traditionally, has been a circuit drivers have enjoyed more on a Saturday than a Sunday. The flowing combinations of corners have provided a great challenge against the clock but make for a track that frustrates in a race for its lack of overtaking opportunities.

Or, at least, that was the case. The character of the Hungaroring has undergone a renaissance in recent years. It's reputation for processional races, and the near impossibility of overtaking have been put to bed: no longer 'Monaco without the walls' but rather something more medium speed and, crucially, in the current era, a track where engineering a tyre delta provokes a decent chance of overtaking.

This isn't specifically a product of the ground-effect era – the resurfacing of the track also improved mechanical grip levels – though the Hungaroring is certainly one of the tracks most transformed by the ability to follow more closely through corners. In this instance, it's through the long final corner, leading onto the main straight where DRS makes T1 the most likely overtaking point. Anyone who doesn't quite get the move completed here, can often take advantage of a defender going too deep into the corner, getting off line and being vulnerable into T2, toward which there is another, shorter, DRS zone, sharing the same detection point.

While the loads on the tyres are not particularly severe, the corners keep coming and don't allow many opportunities for the tyres to cool. In Qualifying, this makes a degree of practicality necessary at the start of the lap, to ensure the compounds haven't overheated in the long, crucial corners at the end of the lap. Over the longer stints, degradation can be high, and traction can suffer – particularly on a weekend with high track temperatures, which Budapest often provides.

The magic of racing at the Hungaroring

Hungary's heritage as a Grand Prix-hosting country stretches back to the inter-war years, and, in Ferenc Szisz, it has a strong claim to being the birthplace of the very first Grand Prix winner – but that doesn't stop the modern Hungarian Grand Prix being a race where the bulk of the crowd are tourists. It's always been a very good race to visit, given its proximity to the classical magnificence of Budapest and mid-summer spot on the calendar.

The track itself is set in a natural amphitheatre, with the majority of the grandstands, and the fan village strung out in a line wrapping around the final corner, main straight and first corner. Where to sit depends very much on what you want to see. Most of the overtaking happens at the first corner, so the grandstands here get the best views of race-day action. The main grandstand opposite the pits offers a view of the teams at work and had the bonuses of a roof and closest proximity to the fan village – but it doesn't really overlook the grid which is set at the start of the straight, to provide the absolutely longest run possible to Turn One.

There are bleachers with a great view of the grid a little further down the straight, with those nearest the main grandstand also being opposite the podium – but the size of the seating areas increases into the final corner, making for the most raucous part of the circuit on race day. The final few grid slots actually curve around the corner, necessitating a second set of start lights, so there's plenty to see here in the build-up to the race. The natural contours of the circuit mean there's lots of general admission space behind these bleachers on the hillside, which creates a wall of noise that's easy to hear in the pitlane.

Ultimate Hungarian Grand Prix facts

1 | This is the 41st FIA Formula One World Championship Hungarian Grand Prix in an unbroken run stretching back to 1986. All of the races have been at the Hungaroring and, on the current calendar, only Monza is enjoying a longer streak of consecutive races.

2 | Historically, the Hungarian Grand Prix was the only round of the World Championship held in Europe’s communist Eastern Bloc, behind the Iron Curtain. The F1 race was a revival rather than a new event. The first Hungarian Grand Prix was held in 1936 and won by Tazio Nuvolari for Alfa Romeo.

3 | Despite occupying a mid-season berth, the Hungarian Grand Prix has a reputation for debut victories. The list of drivers to have taken a first win here includes Damon Hill (1993), Jenson Button (2006), Heikki Kovalainen (2008), Esteban Ocon (2021), Oscar Piastri (2024) and, of course, Fernando Alonso (2003).

4 | Following a first-lap red flag, the restarted 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix featured the incredible sight of just a single car – that of leader Lewis Hamilton – on the grid when the lights went out. Everybody else was pitting to swap from Intermediate to slick tyres.

5 | Aston Martin Aramco Team Ambassador Pedro de la Rosa had his only F1 podium here: second in 2006 for McLaren.

Session Times

FP1

FP2

FP3

Quali

Race