Ricciardo stays fastest; FP2 hit by more red flags

Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing, Hungarian Grand Prix — © XPB

Andrew Lewin 28/07/2017 at 14:3928/07/2017 at 19:57

Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo stayed top of the timesheets in second practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Ricciardo's best time in the 90-minute session was 1:18.455s. That put him 0.183s ahead of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, with Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas a couple of hundredths slower in third place.

Drivers spent the first half hour of the session running the soft compound tyres. Lewis Hamilton eventually set the early pace for Mercedes, his 1:18.779s putting him a few tenths ahead of Ricciardo and his Red Bull team mate and Verstappen.

Not taking any part in this first phase were Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen. Both drivers were waiting for their teams to complete repairs following red flag incidents in morning practice. Palmer eventually made an appearance before the half hour mark, but Magnussen only came out in the final ten minutes. He was able to complete 11 laps by the end of the session.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was the first driver of the afternoon to switch to supersoft tyres. However, the Ferrari subsequently lost power in turn 13, forcing Raikkonen to reboot the onboard systems to get back underway and return to the pits.

As with the morning session, a number of drivers had brief excursions off the track. Continuing his struggles in the Haas, Romain Grosjean went off at turn 4 early in the session. Meanwhile Williams' Felipe Massa had two spins in quick succession, the first while exiting turn 5 and the second running through the chicane.

Red Bull's Ricciardo comfortably ahead in FP1

The first red flag of the afternoon came after 50 minutes, when Pascal Wehrlein's Sauber stepped out entering turn 11. The front right hit the tyre barrier, spinning the car into a secondary left hand side impact. The incident was quickly cleared up and Wehrlein dispatched to the medical centre for a check over.

The second red flag followed ten minutes later, when Palmer lost the back of the R.S.17 going into the final corner. He caught the initial snap but the car spun the other way and went into the tyre barrier backwards, heavily damaging the right-rear of the just-repaired car.

The interruptions meant that teams had to make do as best they could with long distance runs for the remainder of the session. It left Ricciardo's pre-red flag run on supersofts as the best of the afternoon ahead of Vettel, Bottas and Raikkonen. Hamilton never got a proper chance to improve on his early run on soft tyres and was fifth fastest ahead of Verstappen and Nico Hülkenberg.

Hungarian Grand Prix - Free Practice 2 results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:18.455s		32
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:18.638s	+ 0.183s	28
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:18.656s	+ 0.201s	33
4	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:18.755s	+ 0.300s	28
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:18.779s	+ 0.324s	31
6	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:18.951s	+ 0.496s	25
7	Nico Hülkenberg	Renault	1:19.714s	+ 1.259s	33
8	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:19.815s	+ 1.360s	31
9	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:19.834s	+ 1.379s	35
10	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	1:19.909s	+ 1.454s	18
11	Esteban Ocon	Force India	1:20.126s	+ 1.671s	34
12	Sergio Pérez	Force India	1:20.266s	+ 1.811s	33
13	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:20.577s	+ 2.122s	37
14	Lance Stroll	Williams	1:20.791s	+ 2.336s	31
15	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:20.869s	+ 2.414s	22
16	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:21.175s	+ 2.720s	12
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	1:21.345s	+ 2.890s	11
18	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:21.504s	+ 3.049s	25
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:21.559s	+ 3.104s	31
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber	1:21.722s	+ 3.267s	16