Unforgiving Hungaroring can tame Verstappen but challengers need near flawless weekend

If Max Verstappen's victory train is to come off the rails anywhere, there is every chance it will be in Hungary on Sunday.

Added to the fluctuating demands of the Hungaroring are changing tyre rules, vicious heat and a demandingly tight circuit.

But not for nothing are the champions now poised to break one of the toughest records in F1.

A triumph by either Verstappen or teammate Sergio Perez will be the 12th in a row by the Milton Keynes operation, topping a record set by Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren in 1988 in what is generally regarded as one of the greatest seasons in the sport’s history.

They set a benchmark that defied Michael Schumacher and Ferrari in their pomp, Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel’s four-title run and, indeed, Mercedes when they were winning everything in sight with Lewis Hamilton.

Of course, Verstappen and Perez are no Senna and Prost. And they would do well to remember that McLaren’s run was ended by the vagaries of fate and the fumblings of Williams’ stand-in driver Jean-Louis Schlesser.

The Hungaroring, half an hour up the M3 from Budapest, is something akin to a snaking kart circuit where plenty can go wrong.

Its 4.4 kilometres loops in and out of a natural bowl so the result is often a breathlessly hot valley that tortures man and machinery across 70 of the toughest laps of the season.

The pit straight lasts just around 10 seconds and is barely any respite for drivers continually wrestling at the wheel in a double layer of fireproof nomex and suffocating heat.

Added to the demanding topography is the oppressive mid-July sun battering the heart of central Europe.

Drivers can sweat away anything up to three kilos in two hours while the power units have to survive relentless temperatures