Analysis: Speeds and lap times from Hungary

This weekend at Brno, 19 out of 21 drivers will now be equipped with 1.6 litre turbo engines. We take a quick look back at Hungary’s data to see who appears to have the edge.

The first place to look at is the top speed. At Hungary, only two cars didn’t have turbocharged engines, the BMW 320si of Fabio Fabiani, and Robert Dahlgren’s Volvo C30.

You can can see those two are at the bottom of the speed traps, though Dahlgren was only 2.4mph down on the best speed clocked at the first trap by Norbert Michelisz’s BMW 320 TC.

The BMWs have had the edge on top speed since the start of the season. Liqui-Moly Team Engstler driver Kristian Poulsen was also right up there, the second fastest car overall.

Darryl O’Young was the fastest of the Chevrolet Cruzes at 122.9mph. The set-up on the car by Bamboo Engineering seemed to give the Hong Kong driver the edge on speed, though Yvan Muller was only 0.2mph slower in the works Chevrolet.

The new SUNRED 1.6 litre turbo made its debut at the Hungaroring, and was already on the pace with the SEAT 2.0 litre turbo-diesel engine which was introduced in 2007. Also bear in mind the SR León had to carry around an additional 40kg of ballast as it’s officially a new model.

Flipping to lap times however, and we’ll see things are a lot closer.

A bit of a surprise is that the normally aspirated Volvo was actually the fastest car around Hungary, though the team will be ditching that engine for this weekend.

Dahlgren’s 1:56.430 was set in the warm-up session on Sunday morning. This was 0.116s faster than the best time from the Chevrolet drivers of the weekend, which was the pole position lap of Alain Menu.

Javier Villa was the fastest driver over a lap of the BMWs, despite the Spaniard being the 15th fastest driver through the speed traps.

The diesel powered SEAT of Tiago Monteiro was the quickest lapping car of all of the León models, with Michel Nykjaer’s best lap 1.6 seconds down on the best from Robert Dahlgren, indicating some set-up and handling work is needed for the new SR León.

Speak to anyone in the paddock (who isn’t in a Chevrolet) and they’ll tell you they think the Chevrolets aren’t giving it all they’ve got though. The engine was first bench tested nine months ago giving the RML-built Cruze a good head start on BMW, and a massive advantage over SUNRED and Volvo who are only just introducing their engines.

This weekend, Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro will move over to the new SUNRED 1.6 litre turbo engine, and Volvo will introduce their 1.6 turbo for Robert Dahlgren, leaving the Volvo with an interesting achievement – the fastest lap on its final appearance.