Watch Formula 1 Hungarian GP Practice 1 & 2 Live Streaming
There’s a world championship fight hotting up, and a host of sleeping giants clawing their way back towards contention, but the biggest story of the Hungarian Grand Prix could be the fortunes of a relatively unknown 19-year-old driving what has recently been the slowest car in the field. Jaime Alguersuari has found himself thrust into a Toro Rosso race seat at the age of 19, making him Formula 1’s youngest ever race driver - and in the new restricted testing era, Alguersuari’s giant leap could have major implications for other young drivers on the cusp of greatness.
The testing ban was bad news for potential rookies, as with little prospect of getting them up to speed during the reduced winter allowance, teams were more likely to stick with experienced drivers. Conversely, it also opened the door to more mid-year sackings, for if a team felt it simply had to drop its incumbent driver sooner or later, it made sense to bring the replacement in during the summer and use the remaining races to at least ensure they hit the ground running in 2010. However, unlike Raikkonen, who benefited from a full winter of testing, Alguersuari”s only F1 experience comes from street demonstration events and straightline tests.
