| A.Albon | 661 (1%) |
| C.Sainz,jr. | 360 (1%) |
| Ch.Leclerc | 385 (1%) |
| D.Ricciardo | 416 (1%) |
| E.Ocon | 393 (1%) |
| F.Alonso | 296 (1%) |
| G.Russell | 369 (1%) |
| K.Cunuda | 417 (1%) |
| K.Magnussen | 266 (0%) |
| Kuan-jü Č. | 272 (0%) |
| L.Hamilton | 49796 (88%) |
| L.Norris | 294 (1%) |
| L.Sergeant | 258 (0%) |
| L.Stroll | 413 (1%) |
| M.Verstappen | 390 (1%) |
| N.Hulkenberg | 254 (0%) |
| O.Piastri | 276 (0%) |
| P.Gasly | 378 (1%) |
| S.Pérez | 423 (1%) |
| V.Bottas | 368 (1%) |
It's 4am, it's dark and we're setting off into the darkness from Unhost, the direction to Hungary – Budapest – Magyorod – Hungaroring's main gate. Following a text message instructions from a team's member called Rosa, we're expected at 12:15 with passes for 2 hours.
We'd prepared a day in advance together with my wife, packed, checked the car, so that we could just sit in the car in the morning and set off towards D6 – D1 and on, guided by the TOMTOM navigation.
I'd bought highway stamps at UAMK for Slovakia, Hungary, I like to be prepared.
D6 was great, D1 is the traffic black spot of our country, 9 roadworks there and 10 back, a practice ground for tanks in many places. It's 6am and you can't see anyone actually doing anything, ok maybe 1 guy. You definitely won't see anyone working at night, no wonder the repair is a neverending story, it's all just talk but no night shifts. On our Friday's trip the story is the same. A blatant show of inability to solve anything fast, contracts badly signed...etc.
Because we set off so early, we arrived at Bratislava at 8am, Magyorod – a parking lot on a meadow about 300 m from the main gate at about 10:30.
The way down from the parking lot on the meadow to the main gate.
Crossing the road at the RED BULL stand and here we are at the main gate.
We're standing at the main gate to Hungaroring, with huge boxes with the Climber of the Year in F1 2017 trophies made by Crystal Bohemia, a.s. for the team and Valtteri Bottas, packed in plastic bags, secured with shrink foil, in case of rain. On top of them a Billa plastic bag, as we couldn't find anything more suitable at home. I had a knife ready in my belt so that I could unpack them, come rain or shine.
My feelings are always intensive. We don't have FIA accreditations, things are moving forward thanks to massive, several months lasting communication with the Head of Communications of Mercedes Benz motorsport Mr. Bradley Lord. I am truly grateful to him, not only for the passes but also for the time extented from the original 2 to 4 hours!!! He's gained a true friend in Unhost! Thanks to this I was able to meet other people in F1, which was fantastic. The only minus being we were not able to see the garage, which I was sorry for, but what can you do. (Women don't feel the same like men about engines, so I don't hold it against Miss Rose, Ben showed us everything we wanted to see the other day, and took excellent care of us, I missed that a bit this year).
Having changed we walked easily to the main gate and reported to the team exactly at 12:15. Formula 1 is constant meetings, so I received a text message saying there was another meeting, in 10 – 15 mins, at 12:30, wearing about a litre of PACO RABANE XS (we were standing in the heat at the gate, me wearing a tie, a jacket laid on the side) a black Mercedes Benz appeared with a blond reserved young lady inside (I am an expert on body language besides other things and able to read such things immediately), we got in and reached the entrance to the paddock after 5 minutes' ride, where the before obtained electronic cards worked their magic and we were IN!!!
The VIP entrance card of Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One team, courtesy of Bradley Lord. I was still wearing a tie then...
Entrance to the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One motorhome.
We are handing over the trophy, photos taken by Jiri Krenek, you can find more details here: http://www.climberf1.com/cz/clanky/805-predavame-cenu-skokan-roku-f1-2017-valtteri-bottasovi.html. The large cups were manufactured by glass makers from Podebrady.
Having presented the trophy Climber of the Year in F1 2017 we go through the gate, give back the entrance cards to a nice manager, who Rosa sent to walk us out, he asked a lot of questions and was generally very pleasant. We walk the bridge to the main gate, I take some pictures of the place and some stalls, there's a column of cars with fans coming to the circuit.
I was looking forward to Hungarian sausages which I wanted to get before the way, but no one was offering anywhere, probably only after the race and somewhere else.
None of the firms stated here are our sponsors. Only Crystal Bohemia, a.s. Podebrady.
Figures:
Temperatures:
4 am Unhost: 22 degrees Celsius
8 am Bratislava: 25 degrees Celsius
10:30 am Magyorod: 28 degrees Celsius
12:30 pm Magyorod: around 30 degrees
Celsius
5 pm Magyorod, Budapest: 34 degrees
Celsius
1 am Unhost: 25 degrees Celsius
Financial breakdown of our trip to Hungarian GP 2018
UAMK – ten-day highway stamp for Slovakia:
CZK 300,-
UAMK – ten-day highway stamp for Hungary:
CZK 350,-
Petrol total: CZK 2 779,-
Kilometres: 1157 km
Average consumption there: 6.1 l / 100 km
Average consumption on the way back
increased, so overall it's 6.4 l / 100 km.
Counting with depreciation the cost of
travel: CZK 6 595,-
Total including the depreciation: CZK
7345,-
Time elapsed: we set off at 4am, returned
at 1am the next day, which is 21 hours on the way.
Another interesting figures – schnitzels and drinking regime:
As we do it in Czechia, you prepare schnitzels for travelling, we had 10 of them, plus homemade bread, which my wife baked on Wednesday. Add to this a lot of vegetables from our garden – cucumbers, tomatoes. We drank the total of 3 litres of water. We had two bagels at a petrol station on the way back. The reason was we were in hurry, we don't like being late. We were planning to stop for lunch in Budapest around 3pm (I explained above why we didn't).
I fought the tiredness by drinking boosters. Leaving the meadow I had a Red Bull, as warm as a coffee, it was stored in the car. It gave me a kick, 3 coffess at petrol stations and another Red Bull on D1, where the monotonous bumping along at 80 kph makes you sleepy (no wonder there are so many accidents). We have a system of songs to keep the sleep away (I used to be in a band in Unhost and I still play the guitar now and then).
Diabetes II.type had to move aside for a while and I worked out like hell the next day to get the sugar back under control. In spite of that the digital meter came to 12.2 points, which is still pretty bad, but one has to bring some sacrifices time to time.
The Mercedes AMG Petronas Formule One team offered a lot in this sense. We had 3 coffees, two for me, 1 Coke and 2 S. Pellegrino waters. We may have asked for food but we didn't want to push our luck. When we arrived back at the parking lot at 5pm, I gobbled down 2 schnitzels from the thermobag and a bag of vegetables. We never thought we would spend so much time in the paddock (no matter how grateful I am for that), but we were not offered anything as usually.
By the way, we never go anywhere without some presents, we're grateful to the managers of the team who spent their time with us, and gave away a number of interesting and valuable books on our capital, in the English language. I want to make this straight, we'd feel really ashamed if we didn't.
We stormed through Budapest on the way back, my wife taking photos from the side window of our Honda Civic.
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