Daniel Ricciardo remained the quickest man at the Hungaroring on Friday, setting the two fastest times in an eventful Practice 2 at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Australian would post his best time on the second of three lower fuel qualifying-style laps on the supersoft tyre, marginally beating his benchmark from the morning with a 1:18.455s. He would then follow that up with a time 0.08s slower on his final timed lap which would have been good enough for second.
Sebastian Vettel showed better pace for Ferrari as he ended P2 just under two-tenths behind his former Red Bull teammate. He would also just pip the leading Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, with the Finn claiming third and Kimi Raikkonen fourth as the top four was covered by exactly three-tenths of a second.
Raikkonen would cause a little disruption in the order as a throttle problem on his Ferrari caused him to pull off at the penultimate corner after setting his best time. He was able to reset the system but the yellow flag would impact both Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton on their first qualifying simulation lap.
While Ricciardo improved later, Hamilton would not, meaning he did not put in a representative time on the supersofts, but his best time from the early runs on the soft compound was still good enough for fifth overall.
Max Verstappen couldn’t quite hook his Red Bull up as well as his teammate with the Dutchman suffering from understeer on his best lap which left him down in sixth.
Tricky wind conditions and the sensitive nature of the 2017 cars would be very apparent as two drivers suffered major accidents as the result of tank-slappers.
First Pascal Wehrlein would repeat Antonio Giovinazzi’s crash from the morning by sliding off at Turn 11 but would have a more violent impact with the barriers where they separate to allow marshals to recover cars.
Then Jolyon Palmer would hit the barrier at the final corner in quite a strange incident, compounding the Briton’s misery following his earlier failure of the front wing over the kerbs at Turn 4.
His Renault car does appear to have good pace in the hands of Nico Hulkenberg, as the German improved to seventh in the afternoon with the McLaren of Fernando Alonso also looking quick in eighth.
Carlos Sainz would move Toro Rosso in the top 10 for the first time in ninth with Stoffel Vandoorne, despite later engine issues, making it both McLaren’s into what would be points scoring positions in 10th.
Force India would continue their subdued start to the weekend with Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez 11th and 12th, while Williams would struggle as Felipe Massa spun twice and finished behind teammate Lance Stroll as they sat 14th and 15th.
Another team with serious work to do is Haas, as both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean barely finished ahead of Marcus Ericsson’s Sauber as they and Wehrlein brought up the field.
