Hungaroring changes meet with mixed response.

Alterations made to the track layout at the Hungaroring were supposed to fill the drivers with enthusiasm ahead of this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, but met instead with a degree of scepticism.

The redesign follows years of complaint from competitors, who claimed that the tight and twisty nature of the Budapest venue precluded overtaking. As a result, the circuit owners extended the main straight and tightened the opening corner in order to extend braking distances, and also tightened the last few corners of the track in order to open up overtaking opportunities, but their efforts appear to have failed to ignite excitement among the drivers.

"In terms of the changes they've made to the circuit, I like the last part of the track but, in my opinion, the first section was better to drive before," Jacques Villeneuve reported, "I think the changes should make the circuit better for overtaking opportunities though."

David Coulthard shared the Canadian's view that passing other cars may have been improved, but pointed to another of the Hungaroring's prevailing problems as a reason why the changes may not work immediately.

"The new track layout might provide a few overtaking opportunities as it slows the cars down at two significant corners, but the circuit surface is so dirty that it would be risky to go off the line to try and overtake," he admitted.

"It's a very dirty circuit and the balance changed quite a lot from this morning," Villeneuve agreed, while Williams' Ralf Schumacher confessed that he thought the circuit remained a 'one-line' layout.

"The track is as slippery as it has always been here, especially if you come off the line," he said, "For sure, you don't want to be the first car to go out on track. The new track is nice, though, even if, in a way, I preferred the old [first] corner because I thought it was a bit more technically demanding. However, with respect to sorting out the bumps, they did a really good job."

Mark Webber agreed with Schumacher in as far as saying that the circuit remained to tortuous to promote too much overtaking.

"The track, despite its new layout, remains fairly twisty and narrow, so I have no doubt that the race is going to be tough for us," the Australian said, while Renault tester Allan McNish echoed the fact that the new surface will need to bed in before it provides the sort of grip that inspires confidence.

"The circuit changes are pretty straightforward, but the grip level in the new sections is even lower than it is in the old," the Scot revealed, "It will need to improve significantly before anybody can try overtaking."

Heinz-Harald Frentzen, by contrast, said that the new layers of tarmac had adversely affected his practice session for another reason.

"In the morning, I suffered graining [on the tyres], particularly on the new sections of the track surface," the German allowed.

McLaren boss Ron Dennis claimed that the conditions had favoured those teams - such as Jaguar and Renault - that ran during the two-hour extra test session before free practice.

"With the circuit having been modified, and as a result of the debris from the earlier support race practices, the nominal advantage that the morning testers have increased and the early qualifiers struggled,"he said after watching third man out Kimi Raikkonen qualify a provisional twelfth on the grid.

"The circuit conditions were appalling this morning," confirmed Renault's Pat Symonds, "We appreciate that this is an extremely dusty area, but it still seems remarkable that the owners cannot have the track cleaned better than this."