The Hungaroring is built 12 miles north east of Budapest, and is set in a natural Amphitheatre, as the track starts on one side, goes down into a valley before going down the far side, then turning and coming back in the opposite direction. Overtaking is virtually impossible here, as the track is narrow, with many slow corners.

1986 saw Nelson Piquet win the inaugural race after beating archrival, Ayrton Senna, in a close battle. He won again the following year, after Nigel Mansell was forced to forfeit the victory due to a loose wheel nut, with only six laps remaining. Damon Hill won his first Grand Prix victory here in 1993, and in 1994, Michael Schumacher raced his Benetton to the win for the teams' maiden Hungaroring victory. Damon Hill won again in 1995, and came second the next year, behind Williams team-mate Jacques Villeneuve.

In 1997, Damon almost achieved the impossible, bringing his little fancied Arrows to within a lap of victory, before having to slow with a throttle failure and gifting the win to Villeneuve. Michael Schumacher won for Ferrari in 1998. However, the following two events, 1999 and 2000, were both mastered by McLaren driver, Mika Hakkinen. Ferrari secured the next two years with Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello respectively.

Spain's Fernando Alonso made history by winning the 2003 race, becoming the youngest ever winner of a Formula One world championship race. The 22-year-old Spaniard led from start to finish winning by 17 seconds from Kimi Raikkonen.

Michael Schumacher was back to his winning ways as Bridgestone pulled out all the stops and brought a new compound of tyre to the twisty Hungarian track in 2004. Stung by their performance the previous year, the Bridgestone-Schumacher-Ferrari combination dominated in 2004 with Schumacher beating team-mate Barrichello by five seconds and 2003 winner Alonso consigned to the third position.

Kimi Raikkonen romped home to a dominant win over Michael Schumacher in 2005 while his championship rival Fernando Alonso made an uncharacteristic mistake and would battle to finish out of the points in 11th position.

The 2006 event took place at a time when Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso were firmly locked into their title battle and it would prove to be quite a battle with the duo starting 12th and 15th after picking up penalties in practice.

With rain falling on race day Kimi Raikkonen led the way from the Pole but it soon became apparent that the Michelin runners had a significant advantage over Bridgestone and by mid-distance Alonso was back in the lead as Raikkonen ran into the lapped Toro Rosso of Tonio Liuzzi.

The second round of stops saw most opt to retain their worn intermediate tyres but Alonso's race would end seconds later as the right rear wheel nut left the R26 and sent the Spaniard into retirement. Jenson Button, now out front with a commanding lead, brought his Honda home to claim his first Grand Prix victory from Pedro de la Rosa and Nick Heidfeld. Schumacher drove hard race-long, defending vigorously but he just did not have the pace in his package and inherited eighth position following the disqualification of Robert Kubica's BMW Sauber on what was his F1 debut.

The 2007 event was more about the off-track action than the on track action. The battling McLaren Mercedes duo of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying. The former was found guilty of blocking Hamilton however and was dropped from the pole position to sixth position on the grid. From there, Hamilton held off Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari to take the victory by less than a second. Nick Heidfeld finished third in his BMW Sauber while Alonso recovered to finish fourth.

Heikki Kovalainen took an unexpected first career victory with McLaren Mercedes after Felipe Massa's Ferrari engine failed in the very closing stages of what had been a fairly processional event. Massa had made a lightening getaway from third position on the grid to take the race lead from Hamilton and controlled the event until his unexpected exit. Hamilton's race was also severely compromised by a front right tyre failure paving the way for his McLaren team-mate to take his first win.

Timo Glock secured his first podium position for Toyota with the runner-up position ahead of Raikkonen.