Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull, Hungaroring, 2015

Red Bull targeting Williams and Ferrari in Hungary

2015 Hungarian Grand Prix Friday practice analysis

Posted on

| Written by

Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull, Hungaroring, 2015Red Bull arrived at the Hungaroring hoping that the twisty track configuration would help mitigate the disadvantage of their power unit.

Friday’s running gave them cause for optimism, as both drivers were in the top three at the end of the day, within half a second of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes.

However team principal Christian Horner says it’s not the silver cars Red Bull have in their sights. “As long as it all holds together then hopefully we should be in a reasonable position to hopefully challenge Williams and Ferrari ahead.”

Horner is well aware that Williams in particular tend to run higher fuel loads on Friday, so they may turn out to be more competitive tomorrow.

“Fridays are somewhat masked by fuel loads and engine modes and so on so it’s difficult to get a truly clear picture,” he said.

“But our expectation coming into the weekend was that this would be a circuit that would hopefully present an opportunity for us and both drivers have been pretty happy with the car on short and long runs.”

Go ad-free for just £1 per month

>> Find out more and sign up

Daniel Ricciardo didn’t have an entirely smooth day – his car stopped with an engine problem towards the end of second practice. Nonetheless he said the RB11 “felt good”, was better balanced and no major set-up changes were needed.

The same could not be said for Nico Rosberg, who will struggle to take the fight to team mate Lewis Hamilton if he cannot get a hold on the poor balance which left him fourth on Friday.

“Today was a difficult day for me,” he admitted. “I didn’t ever really find the right balance, moving from oversteer to understeer.”

“The long run pace was okay, so I can build on that. But I definitely have some work to do to improve my set-up before tomorrow morning and get some practice in for qualifying during P3.”

Another driver who seemed to be struggling with his car was Sebastian Vettel, who spun twice in second practice which was held in very hot conditions. Temperatures could be even higher tomorrow, nonetheless he played down the significance of his former team’s practice showing.

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Hungaroring, 2015“Concerning Red Bull’s performance, it was a bit expected but it is Friday and you don’t know what people are doing with their fuel loads,” he said. “Still you could see already in Silverstone that they did a step forward.”

“We didn’t get into the rhythm today, now we need to sort out things for tomorrow, then we should have a much smoother weekend.”

Another striking feature of today’s running was the significant jump in performance drivers found after switching from the medium to the soft compound tyre. Some drivers gained more than two seconds. It remains to be seen whether the swing will be as drastic in the cooler conditions currently expected on race day, but as things stand Pirelli expect drivers will need to make two pit stops in the grand prix.

Longest stint comparison – second practice

This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2015drivercolours.csv

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Lewis Hamilton 89.189 90.525 88.739 88.56 90.018 89.31
Nico Rosberg 89.693 88.303 88.657 88.621
Daniel Ricciardo 88.298 88.218 88.241 88.288
Daniil Kvyat 94.931 89.702 89.237 89.137 89.547 88.636 88.578 89.217 89.612
Felipe Massa 89.91 89.477 89.569 90.04 89.724 89.834 89.832 89.833 89.616
Valtteri Bottas 89.452 93.542 89.221 89.311 90.848 89.483 89.503 89.635
Sebastian Vettel 109.732 89.668 90.152 89.412 90.735 90.226 89.523
Kimi Raikkonen 88.687 88.885 89.854 88.839 91.199 89.497 89.184 89.107
Fernando Alonso 90.481 91.561 90.518 90.316 90.286 90.111 90.235 89.999 89.96
Jenson Button 91.47 92.016 91.634 90.784 90.964 91.051 90.801 90.319 90.195
Max Verstappen 88.202 109.074 96.093 100.447 87.874 101.231
Carlos Sainz Jnr 91.397 89.588 89.066 90.091 89.745 89.887 89.676 90.025 90.315 90.331
Romain Grosjean 89.34 89.837 89.352 105.221 90.703 90.365 91.337 90.486 90.798
Pastor Maldonado 91.348 91.768 91.464 91.206 91.159 91.174 91.903 91.798 91.819
Marcus Ericsson 92.136 92.369 92.338 92.016 94.228 91.728 94.83 92.243 91.575 91.862
Felipe Nasr 90.883 90.714 91.136 91.239 91.078 92.254 91.211 90.856 90.595
Will Stevens 94.663 92.921 92.379 92.471 92.792 92.985 95.799 93.006 92.511 92.745
Roberto Merhi 93.209 93.119 92.898 93.098 93.369 94.016 93.169 93.461

Complete practice times

Pos Driver Car FP1 FP2 Total laps
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1’25.141 1’23.949 54
2 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-Renault 1’26.070 1’24.300 46
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1’26.053 1’24.451 36
4 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1’25.250 1’24.668 56
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1’25.812 1’25.134 53
6 Carlos Sainz Jnr Toro Rosso-Renault 1’26.727 1’25.599 62
7 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1’26.395 1’25.660 40
8 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1’27.272 1’25.752 47
9 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1’26.825 1’25.881 54
10 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1’27.381 1’25.920 50
11 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault 1’26.934 1’25.935 46
12 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1’27.308 1’25.994 49
13 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Mercedes 1’28.568 1’26.090 45
14 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1’27.409 1’26.379 60
15 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes 1’26.442 39
16 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1’26.776 14
17 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1’27.732 1’26.831 52
18 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1’27.317 11
19 Roberto Merhi Manor-Ferrari 1’29.113 29
20 Will Stevens Manor-Ferrari 1’29.693 1’29.115 45

2015 Hungarian Grand Prix

Browse all 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix articles

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

One comment on “Red Bull targeting Williams and Ferrari in Hungary”

  1. Somehow I believe the Red Bulls might spring a surprise in Q but will have smoking engines by Sunday afternoon.

    Williams to be nowhere was expected and can Vettel finally clinch a win here, probably just another Hamilton win though.

Comments are closed.