Formula 1

FP1 GRAND PRIX OF HUNGARY : HAMILTON LEADS

Published

3 years ago

17/07/2020

FP1 GRAND PRIX OF HUNGARY : HAMILTON LEADS

After two races in Austria we arrived this weekend in Hungary for the third Grand Prix of the 2020 season.

Mercedes dominated FP1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix to continue their dominance of the 2020 F1 season. Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheet with a 1.16.003 on the hard tyre ahead of championship leader Valtteri Bottas and the Silver Arrows have got their weekend off to the perfect start.

It was a slow start to the session with many of the teams taking their time on install laps before committing to setting a lap time. There was a constant threat of rain throughout the session but only a few drops fell and it didn’t impact FP1 at all.

It was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who set the first fast time on the hard tyre but it wasn’t long before Mercedes were back at the top of the timesheet through championship leader Valtteri Bottas. Red Bull were off the pace with Verstappen finishing 8th and Albon down in 13th. They’ll be hoping to spped up in FP2 this afternoon.

The Finn battled it out with his teammate and the two silver arrows took it in turns to top the leaderboard but it was Hamilton who ended the session on top setting a blistering lap on the hard tyre.

It was largely an uneventful session with the only real drama coming when Robert Kubica, who was filling in for Kimi Raikkonen at Alfa Romeo, spun coming out of the pit lane. It seemed that his hard tyres had not got up to temperature before he put the throttle down but there was no damage done and the session resumed.

Rank	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:16.003	37
02	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:19.089	37
03	Sergio Perez	Racing Point	1:16.530	20
04	Lance Stroll	Racing Point	1:16.967	35
05	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1:17.200	28
06	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:17.238	26
07	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1:17.404	29
08	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:17.435	28
09	Lando Norris	McLaren	1:17.523	26
10	Esteban Ocon	Renault	1:17.615	35
11	Carlos Sainz	McLaren	1:17.675	32
12	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	1:17.713	35
13	Alex Albon	Red Bull	1:17.727	28
14	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:17.890	35
15	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	1:17.969	31
16	Daniil Kvyat	AlphaTauri	1:18.292	35
17	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	1:18.425	32
18	George Russell	Williams	1:18.574	29
19	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo	1:19.150	26
20	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri		0

Pierre Gasly was unable to set a time due to an issue with his power unit. His team spent the whole session with the car in pieces trying to find out what is wrong and will hope to have it fixed before the start of FP2 this afternoon.

Ferrari were off the pace for much of the session but sped up as FP1 came to an end. They finished in 6th and 7th and will still be wanting to improve before the business end of the weekend.

It was Racing Point who finished behind Mercedes with Perez finishing third and Stroll coming in fourth. Red Bull were not far behind but it is always hard to know how much fuel and how hard each driver is pushing.

Nicholas Latifi had a good session and was up to third fastest at one point. He finished the session in 15th but will be gaining confidence with every session he gets in a Formula 1 car.