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Practice Two: Bottas, Hamilton ahead of Verstappen

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Practice Two: Bottas, Hamilton ahead of Verstappen

Follow all the latest times, updates and video from second practice at the Hungarian GP as Red Bull and Mercedes vie for early supremacy


 




 

 




"All the time I try to turn in I'm losing the rear," Verstappen says.


Verstappen pits for a front ring adjustment.


Lewis Hamilton meanwhile gets a big snap of oversteer and goes wide at Turn 11.





 




 


 

 




Andreas Seidl confirms both Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo are now running the upgrades McLaren are running this weekend and he's satisfied with their Friday so far.


"So far we've had a decent Friday afternoon," he told Sky Sports F1.


"It's a complex upgrade (on the bargeboard) but we managed to get it to the car before the summer break. It was important this morning that we could test the upgrade and luckily everything worked as expected. We're now running both cars with the upgrade specification.


"Form is always relative on a Friday. I'd say we are where we expected to be on a Friday - we are simply focusing on our preparation for qualifying and the race on Sunday. I can only judge our own programme and everything went to plan so far."


Norris is running ninth while Ricciardo is 13th.





 

 




 

 




Both Aston Martins also in the top 10 here along with the Alpines, although the position of the McLarens and Ferraris, neither of which are in the top 10, are almost certainly not representative of what you'd expect come tomorrow.




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The top 10 after the qualifying simulations


20 minutes of the session remain, with the Alpines (Ocon fourth, Alonso seventh) impressing aside from the usual suspects up near the front.




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Verstappen adrift of the Mercedes'
And certainly a little further away than you'd expect.


"He's got a lot of understeer," says Karun Chandhok.


Verstappen finishes 0.2s down on Bottas benchmark, although he was even further than that away before a strong final sector in the Red Bull.


"It's so understeery it's incredible," confirms Verstappen.




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Qualifying simulations underway...
On start to go those red-marked tyres, the quickest compound available, and so the lap times start to tumble.


Valtteri Bottas again laps quicker than Lewis Hamilton on the Mercs' opening simulations, although there's just 0.027s in it between them.


Max Verstappen now on his out lap on the same compound.


Ocon is third but 0,7s behind, with Gasly fourth and 1s back, after their respective soft laps.





 





 


 

 




Mercedes currently fastest then so far in second practice.


Max Verstappen reported over Red Bull team radio that he is "still struggling with the same things" in terms of car balance since P1 on his latest return to the pit lane.













 


 

 




 


 

 




Tsunoda's costly crash delays
"It is quite a lot of damage and it's taking quite a long time to repair," reports Ted Kravitz.


"The word from AlphaTauri is that they are hoping to get him back out on track towards the end of the session."


A gearbox change (non-penalty) and plenty of repairs to the rear of the car taking place.




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Lewis Hamilton now moves fastest from what was third place. 


Onto a 1:18.140 for the world champion deep into his opening stint of this session.


He's a tenth ahead of Bottas and two tenths ahead of Verstappen.




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The same top three as P1, albeit with first and second reversed, after the opening dozen minutes of this second session.


Verstappen has just closed up to within 0.046s of Bottas in his latest lap on medium tyres, which the majority of the field have run so far.


Sergio Perez is fourth in the second Red Bull, which is rather better than this morning, although the Mexican is 0.8s off the pace.




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"The last time I looked there was a fair bit of work still going on in Yuki Tsunoda's garage after his P1 crash," reports David Croft. No laps for the Japanese driver in this second session yet.








 


 




 


 

 




Ferrari are expecting to drop backwards here compared to where Charles Leclerc ended up at Silverstone - that is, on the brink of victory - but their weekend has nonetheless started promisingly here on Friday.


Leclerc and Sainz have early laps on the board in P2.


Fernando Alonso currently fastest from Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon... make that was fastest - Valtteri Bottas now ahead with his first lap of the session.





 





 


 

 




Off and underway with Practice Two at the Hungaroring.


Track temperatures are absolutely roasting for this second hour of Friday running.


Five cars immediately on track.





 




 


 

 




Chandhok on what next in Hamilton vs Verstappen
"There is a high chance Lewis and Max are going to be on the front row, or in close proximity, at every race for the rest of this season.


"They'll be fighting over the same bit of tarmac. Who will back out of it? Will they back out of it? It's to be seen."





 


 

 




 


 

 




Fair to say conditions are set wonderfully fair in Budapest this Friday...




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Practice Two next up in Hungary
Welcome back all to the second session of action from Friday in Hungary.


If you hadn't gathered, it's back to the usual format for this weekend after the first of the sprint experiments at Silverstone (the next one will be Monza in September) meaning Practice Two is next up at 2pm.


Max Verstappen was quickest this morning in opening practice, but certainly not by much from the Mercedes pair.


That certainly bodes well for yet another very competitive weekend up front...





 




 


 

 




"Very tight. The good thing for us is Mercedes are very close and the radio communications saying Lewis needed a bit more front end to get him closer to Max.


"There will be a lot of thinking after that session to get around the understeer. Do that and the speed will come big time.


"There are a lot of places here where you can play cat and mouse."





 




 


 

 




FREE TO VIEW: Check out what happened in the biggest incident of the session involving Yuki Tsunoda...








 


 




 


 

 




"At the front, Red Bull vs Mercedes, six hundredths of a second between them. It's game on."





 





 


 

 




Chequered flag is out


Max Verstappen ends the opening session top of the timesheet with a 1:17.555.


Valtteri Bottas is just 0.061 adrift, with Lewis Hamilton a further tenth back in third.


Carlos Sainz is best of the rest for Ferrari, half a second down on the leading time.





 





 


 

 




"Just 0.167 separates the top three.


"Red Bull need Perez to fill that gulf between Hamilton and Sainz.


"They don't need Perez behind any of the midfield cars. As soon as that happens, as we saw in Barcelona, it's done. He's taken himself out of the strategic battle."





 




 


 

 




Sergio Perez is out on a new set of soft tyres.


The Mexican is currently down in 14th.


Not a great first sector for Perez, four tenths off his team-mate which extends to eight tenths by the end of sector two.


He finishes with a 1:18.466 which puts him in eighth.





 





 


 

 




Lewis Hamilton starts his latest lap right on the tail of Charles Leclerc's Ferrari.


A test to see how the Mercedes follows around this track, perhaps.





 




 


 

 




Max Verstappen goes fastest on soft tyres


Just 0.061s quicker than Bottas, but a purple second sector puts him top.


1:17.555 is Verstappen's new benchmark.





 





 


 

 




Green flag is back out


And Lewis Hamilton has to slow his exit from his garage as Red Bull send Max Verstappen out at the same time.


Verstappen is now onto the soft tyres.





 


 

 




 


 

 




"It's the damage mentally, that's the thing that's a hard thing to come back from.


"These things, when they keep on reoccuring. Then you get back to the pits, then you have Franz Tost having a little word in your ear, then you see your team-mate doing so well.


"It's a hard thing to come back from."





 




 


 




Tsunoda, who has had his fair share of incidents in the first half of his rookie season, could have done without this latest one so early in the weekend.


"He's got the speed but he just needs to have a weekend without these sorts of incidents," says Karun Chandhok.


"In FP1, the teams really take a bit of a dim view of it."




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RED FLAG.


Yuki Tsunoda has gone into the wall at Turn Four.


Tsunoda catches the kerbing on the left and he's sent spinning into the wall.


"He lost it earlier in the corner than Fernando Alonso did. That could be quite risky for the gearbox," says Karun Chandhok.





 





 


 

 




Here is how the top 10 looks with less than 20 minutes to go in this opening session...




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FREE TO VIEW: A spin for Yuki Tsunoda a little earlier in the session, one of two in this hour for drivers.








 


 

 




 


 

 




Lewis Hamilton has closed up to one tenth of a second behind leader Valtteri Bottas now.


Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, meanwhile, now up in third behind the Mercedes.


Max Verstappen has been back on track on the hard tyres and improved his personal best, although the tyre performance difference to the soft means he's only in seventh right now.





 




 


 

 




Lando Norris gets a heap of understeer at the final corner as he goes for a second push lap on his soft tyres and goes off very wide.





 




 


 

 




"Red Bull haven't won here since 2014," says Rachel Brookes from the comms box, underlining that, despite this being considered to be a 'Red Bull track', it still hasn't worked out that way too often for them in the hybrid era.


But they are clearly a more competitive proposition everywhere this year.





 





 


 




Several drivers have now moved onto the soft tyres with Gasly, Alonso, Leclerc, Norris and Tsunoda occupying the positions behind the two Mercedes.


Verstappen, now in eighth, is continuing to go round on the hard tyres.





 




 


 

 




Valtteri Bottas moves fastest from Hamilton on soft-tyre runs
New red boots and the Mercedes drivers move into positions one and two on the timesheet.


It's a significantly faster lap for Bottas mind you, with his 1:17.616 some three tenths faster than team-mate Hamilton.


Hamilton reports in that he'll need some front-wing tweaks, pointing to understeer on his W12.


Verstappen down to eighth place as others also improve on the quickest compound. Gasly is fourth with Alonso fifth and Leclerc sixth.




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McLaren duo Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo currently sit seventh and 13th respectively in the time sheet.


Andreas Seidl thinks it could be a tough weekend for the team, but says the objective is still to be holding onto third place in the Constructors' Championship by the end of the race weekend.


"This track here is not really playing to our strengths," Seidl says.


"We were not that strong last year but we have improved the car quite a lot in recent weeks.


"Ferrari we expect to be very strong. The objective is clear, we want to leave this weekend still in P3 in the Constructors' Championship going into the summer break."





 





 


 

 




Esteban Ocon now lifts himself up to second with his latest lap, nearly four tenths off leader Max Verstappen.





 


 

 



 




 


 

 




Six different teams now in the top seven places, as Esteban Ocon moves into fourth for Alpine 0.761s off the pace.


Valtteri Bottas, whose best time has come on the hard tyres so far, is now out on the quickest softs in his Mercedes.





 


 

 




 


 

 




Nearly 20 minutes in and here's how your timesheet looks right now in P1.




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Yuki Tsunoda goes for a spin at Turn Nine
His AlphaTauri gets a snap as he takes the right hander and Tsunoda is sent spinning into the run off area.


But there's no damage aside from some maybe flat-spotted tyres and he's back on his way pretty quickly.





 





 


 




Fernando Alonso goes spinning
The first one of his fifth decade, in fact.


"The wind got behind the Alpine and spun him around," says Karun Chandhok as Alonso loses control at Turn Four.


"That's a high-speed spin and those tyres will have to go in the bin as they are badly flat-spotted."




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Sergio Perez will be hoping for a much improved weekend in the sister Red Bull after something of a shocker at Silverstone.


The Mexican sits 11th in the early standings, running slightly wide on his last lap.


Karun Chandhok on whether Perez is doing enough to earn an extension to his contract at Red Bull: "The question Red Bull are asking themselves is who else is around?


"I do think Sergio has done just about enough in the first half of this year to be re-signed. I don't see who else, they've had a go with Albon, they've had a go with Gasly.


"What's become clear is that anyone alongside Max Verstappen has a very difficult job to try and match him."





 




 


 




Lewis Hamilton puts his first proper lap time on the board and its a tenth off Max Verstappen's early marker.


The Dutchman then quickly improves to a 1:19.366 to extend his advantage to over half a second.





 


 

 




 


 

 




In-form Leclerc fourth fastest early on
Oooh, an early off-track wobble for Charles Leclerc through the right-handed Turn Five in the Ferrari. But he is placed nicely behind Verstappen and the Mercs on the early timesheet.


It's almost been totally overshadowed, but it's worth remembering that Leclerc came within TWO LAPS of ending the Scuderia's near-two-year victory drought at Silverstone two weeks ago.


The Italian team have played down, again, their chances of a repeat here, stressing it isn't quite like Monaco where Leclerc, of course, was on pole (albeit somewhat fortuitously in the end thanks to his crash).




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Johnny Herbert on the Max vs Lewis rivalry... 


"Lewis has always been very, very calm.


"Max is a bit more of a firecracker but it's great that he's a firecracker because that's what we want to see. But there is a calmness that comes with Max at the same time.


"Externally we see the firecracker, but in the car and the visor all down, you get that calmness coming through."


Karun Chandhok adds: "I want to see what happens the next time they go wheel to wheel.


"When they get to that braking zone at Turn One, who is going to yield?"





 





 


 




Verstappen is now onto the track for the first time today, with the Hungaroring a circuit that should suit Red Bull's package rather well - although, in qualifying at least, it didn't quite live up to those long-time historical assumptions here last year.


Ted Kravitz says that it won't be until these early install laps that Honda truly know whether all is well in that engine from Silverstone.


Verstappen up and running on the timesheet already - 1:19.725, to take an early P1 spot.





 





 


 




"The brake pedal is terribly soft," Valtteri Bottas says on his first lap out on the track.


Mercedes tell the Finn it should get better.





 




 


 




Lewis Hamilton completes his first practice start of the weekend from the end of the Hungaroring pit lane to take to the Budapest sunshine and onto a circuit that, as we have mentioned, is like a home from home for the record eight-time victor here.


Max Verstappen waits in the garage for now, with Red Bull usually sending their team leader out a little later than most into P1.


Plenty of cars on track already.




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Green light is on and cars are filing onto track





 





 




Will Hamilton rack up a century of wins this weekend?
A reminder as we get set for the track action to begin, Lewis Hamilton enters the weekend sat on 99 F1 wins after his triumph at Silverstone.


Will the Briton rack up win number 100 on Sunday? Stay with us across the weekend to find out.






Source: Skysports

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