Alonso hopes to avoid wet weather 'gamble' in Hungary

Fernando Alonso hopes that conditions remain dry at the Hungaroring for the remainder of the race weekend, to avoid the inevitable "gamble" that comes with a wet track.

Ahead of this weekend's round of racing in Budapest, the Spaniard had singled out the Hungaroring as one of several venues – along with Monaco and Singapore – where Aston Martin could possibly challenge Red Bull.

But F1 teams' preparations were unsettled on Friday due to a washed-out first practice session, while Alonso clocked in eighth fastest in yesterday's FP2.

"It was obviously a compromised day with FP1 being wet so there was a shorter time for everybody to set up the car," the two-time world champion explained.

"But we maximised the car going into FP2 and the race conditions.

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"I'd prefer dry [conditions] as normally in wet conditions you are gambling on which tyres and the track conditions. In the dry, you usually get the position you deserve.

"Generally, I am quite happy with today and we'll see what we can do in qualifying."

On the other side of the Aston garage, Lance Stroll said the team's AMR23 was still a work in progress in terms of optimizing the car's set-up.

"We had limited running in FP1, only recording about 10 laps due to the heavy rainfall," he said. "FP2 became busier with a few different test items to run on the AMR23.

"Thankfully, the rain held off and we got a good number of laps in and worked through a decent amount of the programme.

"I think there are still a few changes we can make ahead of Qualifying, so we’ll work through our learnings tonight and look forward to tomorrow."

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