Formula 1

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Sunday July 29
Hungaroring, Budapest
Sky Sports F1 1pm

After the flurry of different winners that started the season, Formula 1’s contenders and pretenders have dropped to a more manageable number as we reach the halfway point in Hungary this weekend.

The Hungaroring has been a good track for McLaren in recent years – they’ve won five of the last seven races held there, but even another victory might not be enough to salvage their season.

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Sky Sports F1 commentators David Croft and Anthony Davidson give us their views on the Hungarian Grand Prix

DC: “Hungary has had some awful races, though it’s had some really good races, too. And I thought last year’s race was really good.”

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Sunday July 22
Hockenheimring
Sky Sports F1 1pm

The Nürburgring and Hockenheimring have alternated hosting Germany’s Grand Prix since 2007. This year, it’s the turn of the latter. Sharing the honours seems to work in Germany, though that way of thinking seems to have caught on for the drivers this year, with seven different winners form the season’s first nine races.

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Sunday June 10
Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal,
Sky Sports F1 7pm

This is getting silly now. The Monaco Grand Prix gave us a sixth different race winner in the first six races of the season for the first time.

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Sunday May 13,
Circuit de Catalunya
Sky Sports F1/BBC One 1pm

After their Far and Middle eastern jaunts, it’s normally business as usual when the Formula 1 roadshow heads to Europe and the very familiar ground of the Spanish Grand Prix. The Circuit de Catalunya’s status as both test track and race track means the drivers know it inside out, according to Sky Sports F1 commentator Anthony Davidson.

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Sunday April 22
Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir
Sky Sports F1 1pm

So it looks, at the time of writing, like Formula 1 will be returning to Bahrain after a year’s absence. Whether it should or not is not something we’ve got the space to fully explore here, although the FIA’s insistence that the race will go ahead begs the question of what level of civil unrest there would have to be before they found it prudent to halt their usual operations.

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Sunday April 15
Shanghai
BBC1 & Sky Sports F1, 8am

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Schedule (GMT)
Saturday March 24,
Qualifying: 8am
Sunday March 25
Race: 9am

After last season’s snoozefest, this year’s frantic opener in Melbourne played out in a manner suggesting the teams and drivers had all been shoved in a bottle, shaken up, and then poured out on to the track.

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New year, new rules

The biggest change for 2012, beginning with this weekend's Australian GP, is the ban on off-throttle blown diffusers, which were a big talking point early last season. They enabled the cars to blow exhaust gases through the engine even when the car was off-throttle, boosting rear downforce to improve cornering performance.