Vettel takes a chance on more ultras for Hungary GP

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Sebastian Vettel has opted to take an increased number of Pirelli's ultrasoft tyres to the Hungarian Grand Prix at the end of the month.

The Ferrari driver will be packing nine sets of the purple compound for the race, one more than his team mate Kimi Raikkonen.

It's also two sets more than his rivals at Mercedes and Red Bull, all of whom have decided on a more conservative assignment of seven sets of ultras.

Pirelli has once again offered teams a choice of medium, soft and ultrasoft tyres for the race weekend. Omitting the supersoft compound from the line-up makes it another 'non-continuous' line up, the same as this weekend's German race.

It means teams have to cope with a bigger step between the ultras and the rest of the compounds when it comes to planning qualifying and race strategies.

Drivers get one set of each compound by default, and then can make up the rest of their 13-set assignment as they wish.

In Vettel's case, his bumper load of ultras is accompanied by three sets of soft tyres and just the one mandatory set of mediums. Raikkonen has preferred to take an additional set of the white walled compound.

Top teams play it safe with German GP tyre choice

Valtteri Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen have all made the same selection, with two sets of mediums and four of the soft tyres alongside their seven ultras.

But Hamilton has gone all-in on the yellow soft compound, taking five sets in total and leaving room for just the one default set of mediums in his Budapest hand luggage.

Elsewhere, Force India drivers Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon have made the same selection as Raikkonen. That's also the choice of McLaren's Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, Haas' Kevin Magnussen and Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly.

Magnussen's team mate Romain Grosjean has opted for four sets of softs and just one of the mediums, which is the same as Brendon Hartley has called for in the second Toro Rosso.

Williams and Sauber have both followed Vettel's lead and requested nine sets of ultras. Lance Stroll and Charles Leclerc also copy Vettel's choice of three sets of softs, while their team mates Sergey Sirotkin and Marcus Ericsson split their remaining allocation equally between softs and mediums.

Just one team has gone for ten sets of ultras - Renault also made the same call for the German Grand Prix. This time around, Nico Hulkenberg adds two sets of mediums and one of softs to his consignment, while Carlos Sainz switches things around and takes the contrasting selection.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.