Hungarian GP: Sainz puts Ferrari on top in opening practice

Carlos Sainz offered Ferrari an encouraging start to its Hungarian Grand Prix weekend by setting the pace in Friday’s opening practice at the Hungaroring.

The Spaniard enjoyed a reasonable 0.276s margin over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen while Charles Leclerc confirmed the Scuderia’s early from by setting the third fastest lap, 0.296s adrift from his teammate.

George Russell was Mercedes’ fastest representative in fourth position, the Briton just edging the surprisingly quick Sauber of Zhou Guanyu while Lando Norris completed the top six for McLaren.

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With sunny weather and ambient temperatures set at 31°C, track temps were predictably sky high when FP1 kicked off, with data indicating a tarmac overheated at nearly 60°C!

Over at Haas, Ollie Bearman kicked off his third practice outing of the season with the US outfit while Nico Hulkenberg watched from the sidelines.

Save for Oscar Piastri, the entire field was up and running in the opening minutes of the session, with Verstappen – onboard a heavily updated RB20 – setting an early benchmark time, the Dutchman relying on the soft tyre for his first effort.

Russell quickly overhauled the Red Bull charger but the latter hit back with a 1m19.831s that put him back on top.

Nearly 15 minutes into the session, Piastri finally joined the action, the Aussie signing in with the third fastest lap at the outset.

Over at Ferrari, Leclerc and Sainz were running together on the hards - albeit on different run programmes - while putting their car’s new revised floor to the test.

At the halfway mark, Alex Albon popped out of nowhere to put his Williams ahead of the field, but the Anglo-Thai racer’s P1 was short-lived as Russell improved once again to significantly lower the benchmark to 1m19.137s?

Meanwhile, Lance Stroll describing as “shocking” the behavior of his heavily upgraded Aston Martin did not bode well for the Silverstone-based outfit.

A brief Virtual Safety Car was triggered by a piece of bodywork, presumably from Albon’s Williams, lying on the straight leading into Turn 12. It was quickly retrieved however by an attentive marshal.

Norris’ switch to the soft compound yielded a time just 0.074s shy of Russell. But in an encouraging sign for Ferrari, Leclerc sprung to the top with a 1m19.011. And Sainz followed suit, also on the softs, with an effort that put the Spaniard below the 1m18s barrier.

With 15 minutes to go, the entire field, save Esteban Ocon, endorsed the soft rubber to complete its qualifying runs. Verstappen went all out but fell 0.276s short of Sainz’s best.

There were no further improvements among the front-runners, with Sainz thus topping the session from Verstappen, Leclerc, Russell and an impressive Zhou Gunayu who rounded off the top five for Sauber.

Norris and Piastri followed thereafter while Yuki Tsunoda for RB, Stroll and Lewis Hamilton completed the top-ten. It was a discrete session for the British GP winner who appeared prioritize useful running over performance.

It was another low-key display by Sergio Perez – the man in the hot seat at Red Bull – who led the second half of the field from RB’s Daniel Ricciardo. The pecking order was bookended by both Alpines and the Haas’ of Kevin Magnussen and Bearman.

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