Red Bull, the closest rival to Mercedes in the first races of the season, had a discreet start to the weekend with P8 and P13 for Max Verstappen and Alex Albon, while Ferrari again drifted from those who set the pace of practice.
Under cloudy skies at the Hungaroring, Verstappen set the pace in the opening with a 1m19.536s, making his way around the track on hard tires.
The Red Bull driver lowered the P1 benchmark on subsequent laps in the first 20 minutes of the 90-minute session before Mercedes cars got on soft tires and started sealing the two positions, which they held until final.
First Valtteri Bottas took first place with 1m17.765s before Hamilton used his own red-walled rubber to go faster and traded positions again before Hamilton solidified first place with 1m16.126s just before the half-hour mark. .
Mercedes ordered its cars to stay away and collect data on soft tires due to the threat of rain, with some points falling during the first few laps, which they did, with a massive double block for Hamilton in the first corner. Just noticeable interruption.
At the 50 minute mark, Hamilton and Bottas switched to medium and hard tires respectively, and both drivers improved their best times at the front of the field.
Bottas took first place with a 1m16.089s on his yellow walled tires, but a few minutes later Hamilton returned to the top with 1m16.0003s, an ominously fast time on Pirelli’s toughest tire.
Sergio Pérez, who also had a great run at Turn 1 where he ran close to the barriers on the second lap, led teammate Lance Stroll with third place.
That was 0.527 seconds slower than Hamilton’s runtime, with the Racing Point second driver another 0.437 seconds in the fourth.
Daniel Ricciardo, who ran with a large aerodynamic measuring device installed in his RS20 during the first few laps of installation, finished fifth for Renault, ahead of the two Ferrari cars.
Sebastian Vettel was the main driver for the Scuderia in 1m17.238s, with Charles Leclerc 0.166s behind his teammate.
Ferrari cars are operating to the same specification as last weekend’s Styrian GP, where they failed to finish after Leclerc sparked a collision between teammates on the first lap of the race, as the team brought the Complete upgrade package expected to be unveiled in Hungary ahead of event.
Verstappen finished FP1 in eighth place, slipping by his own effort on soft tires and finishing 1,432 seconds slower than Mercedes’ lead time.
Lando Norris and Esteban Ocon completed the top 10 for McLaren and Renault.
Albon finished 13th in the second Red Bull after his initial lap of soft tires was eliminated by running wide at Turn 11, but he was able to set a faster time, albeit one that was 1,724 seconds from time. Hamilton.
Robert Kubica finished P19 on his FP1 start for Alfa Romeo in place of Kimi Raikkonen after turning corner 1 on a hard tire lap earlier in the session.
Pierre Gasly was not involved in FP1 as AlphaTauri was forced to conduct an investigation into his engine after detecting an anomaly in his data.
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