Lewis Hamilton set the early pace as Mercedes dominated the first practice session ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
On a cool, cloudy and drizzly morning in Budapest, the world champion fired an ominous warning shot to the rest of the grid, posting a 1m16.003s on 10-lap old hard tyres to lead teammate Valtteri Bottas, who posted his best on fresh mediums.
Mercedes would set the pace throughout the 90-minute session after being the only team, other than Williams, to use the soft compound tyre to complete their early laps, as the threat of rain lingered over the Hungaroring.
With conditions on the track staying dry though, Bottas would improve on his first lap on the medium tyre to go P1.
But Hamilton would respond on his 10th lap using the slower hard compound, setting a 1m16.003s to lead the Finn by 0.086s.
Red Bull would be expected to keep Mercedes very much on their toes around the twisty, high downforce Hungarian track, but it was a difficult start for the Anlgo-Austrian team.
Max Verstappen was 1.3s off the pace on the soft compound rubber, with the Dutchman appearing unhappy with the handling of his RB16.
Things didn’t get any better for Max either as he came across a slow Nicholas Latifi not once but twice on attempted flying laps, leaving him down in eighth in the early standings.
Racing Point once again look like being a thorn in the side of the top teams, with Sergio Perez third and Lance Stroll fourth on the soft tyre.
Perez, however, would miss out on the final half an hour of running after heavily flat-spotting his second set of tyres at Turn 1 after just six laps.
Daniel Ricciardo was a strong fifth for Renault as the two Ferrari’s sat sixth and seventh, all three on the medium compound.
Lando Norris was ninth for McLaren and Esteban Ocon completed the top 10 in the second Renault.
Alex Albon was down in 13th for Red Bull after having his best time of the session deleted for track limits.
Latifi was a solid 15th for Williams, six-tenths faster than George Russell as the two drivers used different tyre compounds.
AlphaTauri had a miserable session to match the gloomy skies, with Daniil Kvyat 16th and Pierre Gasly failing to complete a lap due to a suspected Honda engine issue.
No time set so far for Pierre Gasly
And his team are working hard to fix his AlphaTauri ??#HungarianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/prqry6p2tC
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 17, 2020
It was Alfa Romeo who was the slowest team overall however, with Antonio Giovinazzi 17th and Robert Kubica, making his second Friday practice appearance in a week, 19th as he took over Kimi Raikkonen’s car.
The final 20 minutes saw teams complete some longer runs, with an increased chance of rain for the afternoon.
And despite the cooler temperatures, degradation on the soft compound was particularly high, hinting teams may look to focus on the medium and hard rubber in the race.
Full results from Practice 1 can be seen below:
CLASSIFICATION: END OF FP1
Mercedes x 2 from Racing Point x 2 in the opening session at the Hungaroring ⏱️#HungarianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/n7yVcvuokx
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 17, 2020
