Hungary will be a pivotal race in the Formula One calendar: the race, from the tight and twisty Hungaroring, is Formula 1’s last before the four-week summer break. Max Verstappen holds a 63-point title advantage after Charles Leclerc spun out from the lead last weekend in France. Ferrari, however, do appear to have a pace advantage over Red Bull at present – while Mercedes are also edging back into the fight.
Track action began on Friday with the first free practice session at the Hungaroring. The light at the end of the pit lane went green and a flurry of cars were straight out onto the track, led by Sebastian Vettel, who confirmed he will retire at the end of the 2022 Formula 1 season. All 20 cars were on track within the first five minutes of the session. As the lap times started to filter through, it was World Championship leader Max Verstappen who went fastest ahead of the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, with a 1:21.235.
But immediately there was a first show of strength from Charles Leclerc: he took the fastest time from Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz with a 1:20.225, before Max Verstappen slotted in just a couple of hundredths of a second behind him. Daniel Ricciardo was showing some early pace, with the McLaren just half a second back from Charles’ leading effort. After the first 20 minutes we had yet to see any pace from the Mercedes cars, who were choosing to run on hard tyres to start with here.
Some teams, in particular Red Bull, used FP1 here in Hungary to gather some aero data ahead of the summer break, as explained by Sky Sport’s Ted Kravitz: “Red Bull have made some changes to the front wing and side pod entry recently but this is the first time they’ve wanted to measure it in the last few races. Sergio Perez has this huge aero rake to measure how air flow is going into that critical area of the side pods. Just ahead of the summer break, even though the aero engineers need to shut everything down, it doesn’t mean they can’t download some stuff onto their computers and work from home.”
In the meanwhile, we were seeing the lap times consistently come down in FP1: Carlos Sainz was the latest to benefit as he put in a 1:19.671 to leapfrog Charles and Max Verstappen. We then had our first look at the Mercedes cars on soft tres, and it appeared to be an encouraging start for the Silver Arrows. George Russell went second, with 0.2s of Charles, while Lewis Hamilton was a further tenth back in fifth. Sergio Perez was once more struggling to keep up with Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen: the Mexican was half a second slower than Verstappen at that stage, having been comprehensively outperformed by him in France last weekend. Sergioa Perez was sixth, with both Mercedes cars in front of him.
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With 15 minutes until the end of the first free practice session in Budapest, Max Verstappen became the first driver to dip below 1:19 as he put in a 1:18.880 to move ahead of the Ferrari cars. Charles Leclerc responded but was well over a tenth back from the Red Bull. The track evolution continued in the final minutes and it was Carlos Sainz who took advantage, topping Max Verstappen by a tenth or so to put Ferrari back on top. There was also an impressive show of speed from Lando Norris, who jumped up to fourth.
As usual, Ferrari’s battle with Red Bull was very close but the Scuderia appears to have the early advantage around the Hungaroring’s twists and turns. The chequered flag waved and it was Carlos Sainz who comes out on top in Practice One. He was in a tight battle with Max Verstappen and team-mate Charles Leclerc throughout the session. There was also a very impressive fourth place for Lando Norris and McLaren.
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