Lewis Hamilton led team mate Valtteri Bottas in a close Mercedes one-two in first practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Behind the pair of W11s at the top of the times sheets came the two cars closely based on its predecessor – Racing Point’s RP20s. The pink team entered the third weekend of the season under a protest from rivals Renault concerning similarities between parts of its car and last year’s Mercedes.Sergio Perez set the third-quickest time in the disputed machine, half a second off Hamilton, with team mate Lance Stroll the best part of a second away in his RP20.
Ferrari, who endured a difficult start to the season in F1’s two races at the Red Bull Ring, showed better form in the first 90 minutes of running at the twisty Hungaroring. Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc ended the session well inside the top 10, beaten to fifth by Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault.
Max Verstappen, whose Red Bull was widely tipped to be the closest threat to Mercedes this weekend, could only manage the eighth-fastest time. He told the team he “completely destroyed the left-front” tyre early in his final run, and was frustrated at being held up by Nicholas Latifi at one point during proceedings. Alexander Albon put the other Red Bull 13th.
Lando Norris, whose sore chest has been attended to since last weekend, took ninth for McLaren ahead of the second Renault of Esteban Ocon and his team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr.
Pierre Gasly did no laps during the session due to problems with his power unit. “We’ve seen an anomaly on the data of Pierre’s [power unit] and we need to carry out physical checks which will take some time,” said Honda on social media.
The slowest driver to set a time was Robert Kubica, who made his second practice appearance for Alfa Romeo this year, at the wheel of Kimi Raikkonen’s car.
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Pos. | No. | Driver | Car | Best lap | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’16.003 | 36 | |
2 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1’16.089 | 0.086 | 37 |
3 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Racing Point-Mercedes | 1’16.530 | 0.527 | 20 |
4 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Racing Point-Mercedes | 1’16.967 | 0.964 | 35 |
5 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | 1’17.200 | 1.197 | 28 |
6 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1’17.238 | 1.235 | 26 |
7 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1’17.404 | 1.401 | 29 |
8 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull-Honda | 1’17.435 | 1.432 | 28 |
9 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren-Renault | 1’17.523 | 1.520 | 26 |
10 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Renault | 1’17.615 | 1.612 | 34 |
11 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | McLaren-Renault | 1’17.675 | 1.672 | 32 |
12 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas-Ferrari | 1’17.713 | 1.710 | 34 |
13 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Red Bull-Honda | 1’17.727 | 1.724 | 27 |
14 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Haas-Ferrari | 1’17.890 | 1.887 | 35 |
15 | 6 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams-Mercedes | 1’17.969 | 1.966 | 31 |
16 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | AlphaTauri-Honda | 1’18.292 | 2.289 | 35 |
17 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo-Ferrari | 1’18.425 | 2.422 | 30 |
18 | 63 | George Russell | Williams-Mercedes | 1’18.574 | 2.571 | 29 |
19 | 88 | Robert Kubica | Alfa Romeo-Ferrari | 1’19.150 | 3.147 | 26 |
20 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri-Honda | 0 |
First practice visual gaps
Lewis Hamilton – 1’16.003
+0.086 Valtteri Bottas – 1’16.089
+0.527 Sergio Perez – 1’16.530
+0.964 Lance Stroll – 1’16.967
+1.197 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’17.200
+1.235 Sebastian Vettel – 1’17.238
+1.401 Charles Leclerc – 1’17.404
+1.432 Max Verstappen – 1’17.435
+1.520 Lando Norris – 1’17.523
+1.612 Esteban Ocon – 1’17.615
+1.672 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’17.675
+1.710 Kevin Magnussen – 1’17.713
+1.724 Alexander Albon – 1’17.727
+1.887 Romain Grosjean – 1’17.890
+1.966 Nicholas Latifi – 1’17.969
+2.289 Daniil Kvyat – 1’18.292
+2.422 Antonio Giovinazzi – 1’18.425
+2.571 George Russell – 1’18.574
+3.147 Robert Kubica – 1’19.150
Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.
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2020 Hungarian Grand Prix
- ‘Driver aids’ rule Haas broke with Hungary pit calls to be reviewed
- Ferrari did not sacrifice Vettel to help Leclerc – Binotto
- Di Resta to serve as McLaren’s ‘standby driver’ for Silverstone
- Pirelli: 2020 tyres teams rejected would have coped better with high Silverstone loads
- Ferrari wade into Racing Point legality row with letter to F1 and FIA
Jere (@jerejj)
17th July 2020, 11:32
The headline, LOL.
Imre (@f1mre)
17th July 2020, 12:31
It got me thinking: Is this the place to read F1 news?
Webber fan
17th July 2020, 12:37
Very racist.
ian dearing
17th July 2020, 11:36
Ouch! Mercedes .5s ahead of third placed man and 1s ahead fourth. Ham time set on 10 lap old hards.
Kribana (@krichelle)
17th July 2020, 11:37
We should call them Black Panthers…I mean we call the Racing Point Pink Panthers…
Johnny
17th July 2020, 11:39
You love to hear it xD
mark
17th July 2020, 11:50
+1 :-)
David BR (@david-br)
17th July 2020, 12:57
@krichelle I like it! Just turn the ‘Petronas’ logo into ‘Panther Nation’, awesome.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
17th July 2020, 11:47
Blackpink lead the chart. For once I’m glad RaceFans didn’t allow gif comments.
Chaitanya
17th July 2020, 12:26
Blinks will be going crazy after reading the headline.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
17th July 2020, 11:51
Mercedes are so far ahead they’re almost in a different category and the replica of their old car is still better than the entire ‘new’ grid. Its quite shocking. I suppose it’s great if you’re a fan of them but if you’re not, or just want to see anyone else win – just for the variety, it’s pretty disappointing.
Rockgod (@rockgod)
17th July 2020, 12:08
What’s more shocking to me is how the rest of the top 3 with comparable budgets fail year after year in their development efforts to challenge Mercs. And it’s tiring to hear F1 fans keep moaning about dominance of Mercedes when they should be complaining about RB and Ferrari’s lack of innovation and operational efficiencies.
Not George
17th July 2020, 12:20
@rockgod: amen to that. Add Renault to that list too. So bored of reading/hearing the “rebuilding year” BS.
proud_asturian
17th July 2020, 13:00
When Mercedes are allowed to cheat year on year, it’s fair to complain…
nickfrog (@nickfrog)
17th July 2020, 13:09
Any evidence to back that up ? They seem to cheat far less than Ferrari of late.
asherway (@asherway)
17th July 2020, 19:53
@rockgod how is anyone supposed to catch up?? Merc aren’t relaxing, they started this era with a massive advantage and that advantage continues. Given more or less even developments, it’s impossible to catch up. During the RBR years, the sport made repeated efforts to slow them down with aero reg changes. Curiously, no such moves with this era (fric? please). It’s almost like they want these titles to drop into Hamilton’s lap. With no competition to speak of, might as well predetermine the rewriting of the record book. Sure, it’s fixed (and boring), but who cares when we get to ‘watch history being made’?
Rockgod (@rockgod)
17th July 2020, 21:21
The 2017 and 2019 changes were an attempt to “reset” the field at least partially @asherway. It’s not Mercedes’ fault that the so called aero overlords at Red Bull couldn’t take that chance and consistently outperform Mercs even at the high downforce tracks.
asherway (@asherway)
18th July 2020, 14:03
@rockgod this is the hybrid era. as i said, no changes, and none to come. so i’ll ask again, how is anyone supposed to catch up??
René (@)
17th July 2020, 12:09
I remember 2000 – 2004.
3 championships in a row is cool. 4th is ok. After that it felt boring.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
17th July 2020, 12:20
*just for the diversity
Adam (@rocketpanda)
17th July 2020, 12:25
To be honest that’s a fair point and a question I’ve asked myself. What are the other teams doing? They’re not terrible, they’ve got great drivers, great technology, have won championships before and huge sums of money and what are they doing with it? How are they this far behind so consistently? With a sport that operates on such finite margins I just cannot grasp how one team is perfecting the rules every time and everyone else just isn’t close – to the point a copied version of their old car is as good if not better than all the new ones!
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
17th July 2020, 12:40
@rocketpanda It doesn’t help that Mercedes has had a power unit advantage of varying degrees over the past 6 seasons, apart from a period when Ferrari seemingly found a way to cheat. Having even a small power deficit, the other teams have to overcome that disadvantage by making their cars superior in other ways. And that’s difficult to do when Mercedes have the budget they have, and possibly the most well-oiled, well-organised operation that F1 has ever seen.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
17th July 2020, 13:25
@rocketpanda I think the PU regulation is too specific for any other manufactures to recover even from minor mistakes when the one who got it right had the time to develop other things. The gap is just getting bigger.
And now we arrived at the time for F1 to froze development. Just when one manufacture is so far ahead.
Guybrush Threepwood (@guybrushthreepwood)
17th July 2020, 19:11
When you think about it, if FP1 times are representative it kind of makes Mercedes look bad the fact that a team with a budget 1/6th the size using concepts that are a year old are only 0.5 seconds off them.
black (@black)
17th July 2020, 11:56
Damn… if Vettel moves to Aston Martin next year, he’s might going to be in the hunt for some wins… more likely at least than if he stayed at Ferrari.
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
17th July 2020, 11:59
If the pundits and experts wonder why would Mercedes supply RP with technical data, saying that it doesn’t make sense for such a dominating team, this is exactly the answer – if anything could preserve the competitive advantage and decimate the opposition even more, having four top cars in the field is exactly it. Not only bad for competitivness and completely demoralizing other teams, it also makes a huge sense from the perspective of 2022 – Mercedes will practically have twice the allowed budget, all the necessary additional work will be outsourced from there to Aston Martin and believe me, their data will be far more valuable then from AT, Haas or Alpha Tauri.
DAllein (@)
17th July 2020, 12:04
Such collaboration is not possible.
And assumption that they are breaking regulations are baseless at best, just looks just biased and because your team is not winning.
LEMAYIAN (@lems)
17th July 2020, 12:00
Can we just appreciate that heading for a moment?! No one ever thought this was possible😁😁
Rodber
17th July 2020, 12:04
Quite frankly Rob Kubica should now walk away from F1 and make room for someone who can drive.
God bless Orlen and help them decide to sponsor some other person/event that might bring them some return on their money. This short break before Silverstone should give Kubica ample time to pack….
David (@davidjwest)
17th July 2020, 12:31
Calm down dear, it’s only FP1.
Was Bottas on softs?
MacLeod (@macleod)
17th July 2020, 13:20
Lewis on Hard, Bottas on the medium……
I think season is over Mercedes win RP second…
petebaldwin (@)
17th July 2020, 13:25
This season was over when they announced the technical regs would change in 2021. 2021’s season was over when they announced the new technical regs were delayed.
No-one is getting near Mercedes and Bottas isn’t good enough to sustain a challenge over the season.
Now that we have 4 Mercedes on the grid, it’s even tougher for us to pretend that anyone else might be able to put up any sort of challenge.
Robbie (@robbie)
17th July 2020, 15:07
Oh I expect Max and RBR to have a say in this and over the season I expect them to split the Mercs. Max P2 in the WDC, RBR P2 in the WCC.
Alex
17th July 2020, 18:24
Yas muchas I hope that you are right I just can’t see it happening. That Mercedes is so far ahead of the competition it would take a huge stroke of luck for Max to be anywhere near them in the race
Rockgod (@rockgod)
17th July 2020, 21:23
Did everyone forget about Austrian GP 2 weeks ago and how FP times mean nothing when it comes to the outcome of the race?
David (@davidjwest)
17th July 2020, 15:56
Apparently RB had their engine turned down for FP1.
Tim Lemmens
17th July 2020, 21:52
As opposed to Mercedes who were running in qualymode? Every team has the engine turned down in FP.
James Neutron (@phillyspur)
17th July 2020, 19:43
So Robert is still behind Russell. Is he going to blame it on being sabotaged by Alfa Romeo.