What we learned from Friday at the Hungarian Grand Prix

Hungarian GP

What we learned from Friday at the Hungarian Grand Prix

Analysis of the practice sessions.

Matthew Scott

Friday 2 August 2019 16:45

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Friday at the Hungarian Grand Prix saw changeable conditions play havoc with teams' preparations, especially in an FP2 session that saw long stretches pass with no on-track action.

Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly were the drivers to take P1 across the sessions, although neither will read too much into their standing.

Forecasts suggest that the rainy conditions that faced teams in the second session are unlikely to return over the weekend, making that running perhaps less important, but a few clues for the weekend ahead remained out there.

Top three tight together

Just a tenth split Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari in FP2 and it was fascinating to note that the three teams seemed to excel in different parts of the track.

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Ferrari's rapid SF90 looked the car to beat in sector one, with Mercedes and Red Bull hauling them back in over the rest of the track.

Although Ferrari's straight-line speed is not expected to play too much of a role this weekend, Sebastian Vettel was able to keep on the coattails of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton – just a thousandth of a second split the German and Dutchman in FP1.

Fingers crossed it remains across the weekend!

Williams closing the gap?

Although track conditions proved tricky to master in both sessions, George Russell managed to finish ahead of cars on dry-track lap times in both sessions.

The shorter lap should play into their hands, but the high downforce nature of the Hungaroring would not be expected to play into their hands.

The team brought significant upgrades to the German GP last time out and will hope for calmer weather on Saturday as they look to measure how much of an impact they can make.

Are we set for another crazy race?

Engineers up and down the grid may well be binning the data sheets pulled out from FP2 and that could give us plenty to look forward to over the weekend.

Previous practice washouts have given us thrillers in the United States and Germany last year as teams struggle to optimise their set-up, shaking up the natural order of things.