Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas took top spot in the second free practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, pipping team-mate Lewis Hamilton to P2 by 0.027s. Max Verstappen could not repeat his FP1 outing as he slipped behind both Mercedes cars to take P3, with Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez well off the World Championship leader’s one-lap pace, but he still took P5 in the session.
Temperatures were searing in the sun at the Hungaroring and the majority of the drivers wasted no time in getting out on track to complete their early runs. As drivers swapped to the soft tyres for their qualifying, there was an enormous difference in lap times compared to the mediums – with some lapping upwards of a second faster than their previous best efforts, which would potentially have ramifications in qualifying in forcing front-running cars to start on the softs, rather than their usual preferred strategy based around the mediums.
Scuderia Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz did not finish the second free practice session in the top 10 and their times are almost certainly not representative of what we would expect come tomorrow. Charles’ 1:18.370 lap time was more than one second off pace, while Carlos ended the session right behind his teammate, with a personal best lap time of 1:18.441. Both drivers completed several race and qualifying simulations with different loads of fuel.
Leaderboard
(All fastest times set on soft tyres, except Nikita Mazepin on mediums)
1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:17.012 29 laps
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 0.027s 27 laps
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull 0.298s 24 laps
4 Esteban Ocon Alpine 0.747s 29 laps
5 Sergio Perez Red Bull 0.812s 23 laps
6 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 1.101s 30 laps
7 Fernando Alonso Alpine 1.157s 27 laps
8 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 1.216s 31 laps
9 Lando Norris McLaren 1.301s 25 laps
10 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1.308s 30 laps
11 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1.358s 30 laps
12 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1.429s 32 laps
13 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 1.725s 26 laps
14 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo Racing 2.265s 21 laps
15 George Russell Williams 2.280s 29 laps
16 Nicholas Latifi Williams 2.467s 30 laps
17 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 2.659s 3 laps
18 Mick Schumacher Haas 2.805s 29 laps
19 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing 3.174s 28 laps
20 Nikita Mazepin Haas 4.869s 28 laps
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