Hamilton fastest in Hungary practice

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in second Formula 1 practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix as Red Bull emerged as Mercedes’ closest challenger.

“It seems in the hot conditions we’re performing well and I’d like to think in the cooler conditions we’ll do well tomorrow”, he declared.

Unfortunately, Ricciardo also suffered another Renault engine failure later in the session after clocking his best time.

“[Ferrari] were a long way off the pace yesterday, in low and high fuel, so it’s really hard to assess where they are”.

The sight of former world champions Red Bull even challenging for the second row has been a rare occurrence this season amid engine supplier Renault’s continued wait to find a breakthrough with their power unit. From Friday morning I was just happy with the vehicle and we didn’t really change much all weekend.

The major problem on Sunday might actually turn out to be the corners, though, as the modern sport that we call Formula 1 is more about push-to-pass racing that at virtually any time we’ve seen in the past few decades.

“That probably is the earliest that we are going to see any form of development or use of the tokens”, he continued, “so the engines we’ve got at the moment are what we’re having to live with for the time being”.

“Maybe we can do something with these [Mercedes] guys, but I expect a tight race also with people behind to Williams and Red Bull in particular”. It’s in the hands of the team.

“From what I understand, in the next two weeks there should be a bit more of a plan in place”.

Hamilton came home with the fastest time and sat 0.351 seconds ahead of second quickest Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull.

The accident came only three days after most of the drivers had attended the funeral of Frenchman Jules Bianchi, who died last week in hospital of injuries sustained at the Japanese Grand Prix nine months ago. Watch and listen as Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault-powered auto comes to a halt in Practice Session 2.

Nico Rosberg in the sister Mercedes and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen completed the top five, while Fernando Alonso received a boost as he claimed eighth in his McLaren.