Lando Norris put McLaren fastest in the second practice session at the Hungaroring after Charles Leclerc spun into a barrier.
The Ferrari driver lost control at the exit of the fast high-speed corner of turn four and crashed into the outside barrier, bringing his session to an early end.After practice resumed, Norris posted the fastest time of the day with a 1’17.788 on fresh soft tyres. That proved to be the best time of the day, with Max Verstappen the only driver within three tenths of the McLaren by the chequered flag.
Verstappen, running with the fully upgraded Red Bull RB20 this weekend, was just under two tenths faster than his team mate Sergio Perez who ended the session fourth fastest running a portion of the new parts on the RB20. Perez had a lucky escape when he was almost being hit by Zhou Guanyu.
The Sauber driver spun at the exit of turn four having come across the Red Bull driver off the pace. Despite a dramatic high-speed spin, Zhou somehow avoided the Red Bull and the barriers.
First practice pace-setter Carlos Sainz Jnr split the two Red Bulls in third. Back-to-back grand prix winners Mercedes were fifth and seventh with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, respectively, separated by Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.
Daniel Ricciardo ended the second session of practice as the eighth-fastest driver and easily the quickest RB. Alexander Albon was ninth for Williams with Fernando Alonso completing the top ten after being held up by team mate Lance Stroll at one stage.
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On a weekend where Sauber introduced their biggest upgrades of the season so far, Valtteri Bottas gave the lowest-ranked team in the championship some hope for the rest of the weekend with the 11th-fastest time. Alpine will be looking to extract more pace out of their car with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly only 14th and 16th, respectively.
The final driver to sit out of their expected position in the session was Oscar Piastri. The McLaren driver ended the day only 13th after he came close to emulating Zhou and Leclerc as he almost lost control of his McLaren at the exit of turn four on his push lap.
2024 Hungarian Grand Prix second practice result
| P. | # | Driver | Team | Model | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren-Mercedes | MCL38 | 1’17.788 | |
| 2 | 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull-Honda RBPT | RB20 | 1’18.031 | 0.243 |
| 3 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Ferrari | SF-24 | 1’18.185 | 0.397 |
| 4 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull-Honda RBPT | RB20 | 1’18.255 | 0.467 |
| 5 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | W15 | 1’18.294 | 0.506 |
| 6 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas-Ferrari | VF-24 | 1’18.315 | 0.527 |
| 7 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | W15 | 1’18.363 | 0.575 |
| 8 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | RB-Honda RBPT | 01 | 1’18.371 | 0.583 |
| 9 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Williams-Mercedes | FW46 | 1’18.514 | 0.726 |
| 10 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin-Mercedes | AMR24 | 1’18.519 | 0.731 |
| 11 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Sauber-Ferrari | C44 | 1’18.586 | 0.798 |
| 12 | 2 | Logan Sargeant | Williams-Mercedes | FW46 | 1’18.611 | 0.823 |
| 13 | 81 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren-Mercedes | MCL38 | 1’18.618 | 0.830 |
| 14 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine-Renault | A524 | 1’18.754 | 0.966 |
| 15 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Haas-Ferrari | VF-24 | 1’18.791 | 1.003 |
| 16 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine-Renault | A524 | 1’18.888 | 1.100 |
| 17 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin-Mercedes | AMR24 | 1’19.179 | 1.391 |
| 18 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | SF-24 | 1’19.286 | 1.498 |
| 19 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | RB-Honda RBPT | 01 | 1’19.606 | 1.818 |
| 20 | 24 | Zhou Guanyu | Sauber-Ferrari | C44 | 1’20.067 | 2.279 |
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2024 Hungarian Grand Prix
- Verstappen names Hungarian GP the most stressful moment of his title-winning year
- McLaren team orders “a new situation we’re inexperienced at handling” – Piastri
- Verstappen dismisses critics of “vocal” radio messages and late-night simracing
- Norris’ former McLaren team mates say he was right to give up win
- Mercedes surprised Hamilton’s car was “completely unscathed” in Verstappen clash
BLS (@brightlampshade)
19th July 2024, 17:27
Leclerc is having a bit of a mare of late, whilst Sainz is keeping his rep looking very good.
Hamilton is having a pretty bang average season so far, but I do wonder if it’s gotten into Leclercs head at all that he won’t be the defacto number 1 very soon? Seems unlikely but then he is having quite the run of poor form.
Otherwise it’s looking promising on the timesheets, no one team running away with it on one lap or long run pace.
Applebook
19th July 2024, 18:19
The 2024 Ferrari doesn’t suit Leclerc’s driving style. It’s that simple. His style is the polar opposite of Sainz’s.
An Sionnach
19th July 2024, 19:01
Sainz is looking very good. Thought he drove a good race last time around and is close to Leclerc even though he missed a race through illness. He just keeps soaking up the points. Sainz’ seems less inclined to go tepid of late, too. Good work!
I’m more certain now that Lewis will outperform Leclerc next season. I thought it would be tight initially, but I’ll now go out on a limb and suggest that it won’t be.
It’s impressive just how close George and Lewis are when it comes to qualifying lap times. Perhaps the team where both drivers are getting the most out of the car most of the time? The Alpine drivers are often close, too. Would be nice to see each driver do their best lap in each of the cars.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
19th July 2024, 19:33
I think it depends on how good the car is too, both hamilton and leclerc don’t tend to be very good with a bad car, probably motivation related.
An Sionnach
19th July 2024, 23:03
They’re both clearly talented, but work in mysterious ways.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th July 2024, 17:30
Even indirectly blaming Perez was pointless as the error of going too wide to keep car control was totally on Zhou.
Nick T.
19th July 2024, 21:42
I think it was mostly the fact that even if he had been in control, Perez’s speed and location means Zhou is either running into him or getting horribly impeded.
There should, at the very least, be a minimum speed that applies to the entire track. It’s crazy there isn’t. Deltas don’t work.
Maciek (@maciek)
19th July 2024, 18:54
Outside of Monaco, when was the last time Leclerc did something that made him look above average?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
19th July 2024, 19:36
It’s been a while indeed, I don’t rememeber other exceptional performances by him this season. He outperformed sainz by some margin in miami and imola this year, right before monaco, that’s about it and I admittedly had to look up those 2 to remember them.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
19th July 2024, 19:39
Ahh, but sainz even had a penalty for the crash with piastri in miami race, he’d have been only 1 place behind leclerc otherwise.
Alonslow
19th July 2024, 19:46
I’m gonna make an unpopular opinion but Leclerc is looking more and more like Trulli.
MichaelN
19th July 2024, 20:30
His race in Japan was strong.
But on the whole you’re right; whereas Sainz seems to be living up to the moment of being out of a seat, Leclerc seems to be languishing. Problem is, if Ferrari ever gives him ‘that car’, he needs to be on it from day 1. He needs to be ready now.
An Sionnach
19th July 2024, 21:40
Yes. Lando has the car now and himself and the team are not ready. All they have to do is pit when the others do. They don’t have to beat them on strategy as they have a better car. The same strategy should do.
Nick T.
19th July 2024, 21:49
Hasn’t Leclerc still out qualified Sainz across the season and beat him on race day as often as not. It just seems people expect so much more out of Leclerc than Sainz despite the fact that we know that even a 9/10 driver shouldn’t be crushing an 8/10 driver. I think a few weekends in which he finished near last due to issues and situations that were not of his making, like Canada and Silverstone, he looks like he’s done much worse than he has.
I say this as someone who never thought Leclerc or Sainz were anything more than around Button or Seb level stars at best. So, I have no vested interest in either.
Nick T.
19th July 2024, 21:52
BTW, Leclerc seems really sick of Ferrari. He seems like he needs a change of environment. So, ironically, it appears he might benefit more from leaving Ferrari than Sainz in the long run if there was anywhere to go to.
MichaelN
19th July 2024, 23:53
Sainz and Leclerc have the same rounded down average qualifying position (5th) with Sainz edging ahead just slightly on the decimals. So while in the head-to-head it’s 7 to 4 in Leclerc’s favour, Sainz is usually right behind when Leclerc ‘wins’ in qualifying. In the 4 races Sainz beat Leclerc, there was a bigger gap which lead to Sainz being slightly ahead on average position.
In the races it’s, purely on finishing position, 5 to 5. But here we see the same thing, Leclerc has some stinkers which bring his average position down to 5th versus Sainz’ 4th (a score second only to Verstappen’s average of 2nd, while Norris edges out Leclerc for 3rd overall). Sainz and Leclerc also have 5 podiums and 1 win each. So it’s quite similar.
But I doubt Ferrari wants ‘another Sainz’ from their lead driver. So far Leclerc has really only impressed in early 2022, and even then he squandered a giant points lead in just a handful of races. It was thus probably more a case of Red Bull fumbling the start of the season (much like Hamilton did in 2017) rather than anything extraordinary on the part of Ferrari and Leclerc.
Nick T.
20th July 2024, 12:24
Point is, people can’t say Sainz is driving better than Leclerc. People just expect more out of Leclerc. So, if Sainz is neck and neck with him, the interpretation seems to be Sainz thriving and Leclerc struggling. Slightly unfair to Sainz and CL. They’ve both proven too crash happy for my taste. Leclerc seems to have more pure pace, but not the highest race IQ while Sainz has a high race IQ.