Mercedes are the team to beat in Budapest after Valtteri Bottas led Lewis Hamilton in Practice 2 at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
In scorching temperatures, the Finn would post the best time of 1m17.012s during the soft tyre run to finish just 0.027s ahead of his seven-time world champion teammate.
Max Verstappen would be almost three-tenths down in third as he struggled more than most for balance in the hot conditions, particularly suffering from understeer on his flying laps.
Enough playing with the Mediums, it’s a fresh pair of Softs for Esteban on his next run. #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/6BuJDVjTeV
— Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) July 30, 2021
Behind the top three was a gap of 0.45s to Esteban Ocon in an impressive fourth, just in front of Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull.
Pierre Gasly continued his strong pace in sixth, with Fernando Alonso seventh for Alpine.
Aston Martin was the first team to do their soft tyre runs and both Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll would hang on to top 10 places in P8 and P10 respectively.
In between was Lando Norris in ninth, as McLaren’s fears of weaker performance at the Hungaroring appear well-founded for now.
A notable surprise was Ferrari having both cars in the lower half of the standings, although the gaps in the midfield are very small as 6th placed Gasly was just a quarter of a second ahead of Charles Leclerc in P11.
Race preps ongoing ???
10 minutes left into #FP2. #essereFerrari? #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/xax72520ZU
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) July 30, 2021
Daniel Ricciardo remains well off the pace of teammate Norris in 13th, just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in 14th.
George Russell was 15th, while Yuki Tsunoda, who crashed in FP1, made it back on track just in time for one flying lap in the closing minutes to take 17th.
Antonio Giovinazzi recovered from a problematic morning but could do no better than 19th, as Nikita Mazepin was 1.7s slower than anyone else in 20th.
Back at the front, some will be surprised to see Mercedes having an edge over Red Bull on Friday around the twisty Hungaroring.
The prerogative seems to be on Verstappen and his team to solve the balance issues that impacted every driver in the baking heat.
But after the sunlit practice sessions, will the weather continue to cooperate or will the predicted thunderstorms turn everything on its head… we’ll have to wait and see.
Full results from Practice 2 can be seen below:
FP2 CLASSIFICATION
The running order from our second session of the weekend!#HungarianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/G5S3JV3wjH
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 30, 2021