The Hungarian Grand Prix is broadcast live on 5 Live and the BBC Sport website
Max Verstappen said he believed it would be difficult to beat Ferrari in a clean battle in the dry after Friday’s Hungarian Grand Prix practice.
Red Bull driver Charles Leclerc’s title rival was best, with Verstappen fourth, 0.283s behind.
Verstappen was also led by the out-of-position McLaren of Lando Norris and the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.
“They are a bit ahead. It will be difficult to beat that but we will try to close the gap,” said Verstappen.
However, rain is forecast for qualifying on Saturday, which could change the racing picture.
(We’ll) see what the weather gives us tomorrow, Verstappen said. “In the dry we can’t race, so maybe in the rain we can. Who knows?”
Verstappen was in pole position in the final wet qualifying session in Canada last month, although Leclerc was out of the picture in Montreal due to a grid penalty for using excessive engine parts.
Verstappen, who leads Leclerc by 63 points with 10 races remaining after the Monegasque fell from the lead in France last weekend, said he had always suspected the tight and twisty Hungaroring would be a difficult race for Red Bull.
“A bit difficult, as expected here,” said Verstappen, “I’m just trying to find a balance between high and low speed. Sometimes it worked out a little better, sometimes a little more complicated. Some work to do.’
Leclerc had a similar margin over Verstappen in both qualifying and race simulations.
As befits their season so far, however, Ferrari’s session was not without problems.
Leclerc had to cut his race simulation short after one lap when he felt engine trouble at the start, complaining of a lack of torque in fourth gear.
They told him to box and he asked, “Is there a problem?” “We’re checking it,” his engineer said.
But when he took to the track a few minutes later, he had a significant speed advantage over Verstappen, Leclerc a full 0.3 seconds ahead of the average, both running the medium tyre. Sainz’s first run was on the softs and couldn’t compare.
Positive signs at McLaren
Norris played down the importance of being second fastest, saying the McLaren’s engine was running in high power mode than the others.
But he said he was encouraged by the car’s speed and that it was performing better than in recent races.
“Okay,” Norris said. “The car performed very well from the start. I felt comfortable.
“It’s a little bit overrepresented today because we’re represented more than other people.
“We are definitely not fighting for the positions of Ferrari and Red Bull. But we’re definitely in a good place.
“But it’s still only Friday and the weather is expected to change tomorrow. Things are a bit better now than they were, so that’s a positive.”
Norris was 0.217 seconds slower than Leclerc and 0.014 seconds faster than Sainz, who edged Verstappen by 0.052 seconds.
Mercedes seemed to struggle. George Russell was their fastest driver in eighth, 0.910s slower than Leclerc and behind McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel.
Lewis Hamilton was even worse, 11th and 1.102 seconds behind Leclerc, and complained that the car was “unstable” during his race simulation.
After upgrades for Hungary, Haas was nicknamed “the white Ferrari”
What’s going on at Mercedes?
Hamilton, who has won in Hungary eight times in his career, said it had been a “difficult day”.
“The car is a bit difficult,” he said. “It’s crazy how it swings so much from track to track, just setting up, trying to figure out how we can work.
“It’s a little loose and not doing what we want it to do. For some reason this track doesn’t work so well. But once we got it right, the gap (at the front) is about the same as last week, about a second.”
But Russell said Mercedes ran a slightly different program than normal trying to learn about the car.
“Definitely not our smoothest Friday yet,” Russell said. “A bit strange because we think it will be wet for qualifying and the conditions on Sunday will be drastically different, so we tried a few things with the car, using it as a bit of a test session.
“But there’s no benefit from that for the rest of the weekend, so even though it was a very tough day, I think it was probably productive.
“(We) were just trying things to learn more about the car and rather than trying to get the most out of the lap time, we were more just trying to gather information that would help us in the long run.
“We were definitely a little further along than we would have expected. A few problems here and there, but tomorrow will be a completely new day and Sunday will be a very different day as well.”
The two most intriguing upgrades were at Aston Martin and Haas.
Aston Martin have introduced a design that reintroduces an end plate shape. The 2022 rules are written in a way that aims to prevent the use of these parts of the rear wing, replacing them with a curved transition from the sides of the wing to the downforce elements.
This was part of a package of changes to reduce turbulence and make it easier for cars to follow each other.
The other notable upgrade was at Haas, which features an extensive package of changes and has been dubbed the ‘white Ferrari’ for its resemblance to the car that was king of qualifying this season.
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