Lewis Hamilton saw little reason to complete a significant amount of running as rain moved in during Hungarian GP practice.
After the first wet race of the year at Hockenheim last weekend, teams and drivers had to deal with more inclement weather as showers hit the Hungaroring throughout the day.
Hamilton would lead the predominantly dry first session though before finishing third in the second, and explained his decision not to complete a long run on the intermediates when conditions did worsen in the afternoon.
“This afternoon we got a slight run on the harder tyre and then three laps out there [in the wet], and then we stopped,” he surmised.
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“There’s just really not much point going out in the wet. Nowadays, if you know Sunday is going to be wet and Saturday is going to be wet and it will be a completely wet weekend, you can make subtle changes to help with the wet balance.
“But it’s kind of irrelevant now, especially when you know the race is going to be mostly dry, then you just focus on getting the best setup in the dry and then you deal with it in the wet.”
On a separate note, Hamilton also gave a positive update on his health as he continues to recover from an illness he had last weekend in Germany.
“I was a million times better getting back in the car this morning, and even this afternoon,” he said. “I’m still sweating a lot, so I’m still sweating out whatever bug that I had, but that’s a good thing.”
Across the garage, Valtteri Bottas had a difficult day after an engine misfire meant he missed the best of the conditions in the morning, leaving him on the back foot compared to his rivals.
“They couldn’t find the issue immediately and that’s why we decided to swap the power unit for practice two in the hope for more laps but in the end, we didn’t get many,” he explained.
“It’s fine, at least the time I was in the car I felt good. It felt a lot better [than Germany].
“I think the set-up of the car is quite different here and it felt a lot better and more grip in general, the balance was better.
“Just looking at the lap times we were doing at the end with the other cars at the same time, it was quite decent.”
