Hamilton anticipating a "tough battle" with Red Bull in Hungary

Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton anticipating a "tough battle" with Red Bull in Hungary

The weekend has already been affected by the rain, and more is set to follow

Sam Hall

Friday 17 July 2020 18:20

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Lewis Hamilton has no doubt Red Bull will come out fighting in Hungary this weekend despite the six-time Formula 1 champion looking ominously quick in practice.

In the only dry session of the day in the morning at the Hungaroring, Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Alex Albon could only register the eighth and 13th fastest times.

On soft-compound tyres, Verstappen finished 1.2secs behind Hamilton, whose best lap of one minute 16.003s was on the hard tyre.

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The Mercedes driver, though, pointed to Red Bull's historically strong performances at the Hungaroring as a reason not to discount them from the battle for victory.

Speaking after a wet FP2, Hamilton said: "This is a Red Bull track. It's always just been strong for Red Bull, so I anticipate it's going to be a tough battle with those.

"On Sunday, I hope it's going to be dry. I want a dry race and a dry qualifying. This is such a great track to drive in the dry. It's a very tricky circuit to drive in the wet."

Despite the difference in lap time and on vastly different compounds, Hamilton warned: "I'd just say don't take too much from it.

"Everyone's doing something different out there in terms of wing, and fuel, and engine, and all this kind of thing, but we got through what we needed to get through."

After taking pole in memorable fashion last time out for the Styrian GP, demolishing the field by over a second in the extreme wet conditions, Hamilton could be forgiven for wishing for the rain to fall again.

But the Briton added: "It was great in the rain in Austria. It's a little bit different here. We have higher downforce but the track seems to be a lot more slippery, so if it is a wet qualifying, it's not going to be like last week.

"However, who knows, maybe I'll do a decent job again."

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