Hamilton best in 1st practice at Hungarian GP; Perez crashes

Force India’s Sergio Perez describes his crash at the Hungarian Grand Prix as a “strange accident”, after flipping his auto in first practice.

The battle to be the second-best team in Hungary looks set to be an interesting one with Daniel Ricciardo hopeful Red Bull can stay ahead of Ferrari and Williams.

“Sahara Force India will not take part in this afternoons second practice session at the Hungaroring as the team continues to investigate a suspension problem, which caused (driver) Sergio Perez to crash this morning”.

Sebastian Vettel twice lost control of his Ferrari in spinouts, but managed seventh best. If Hamilton were to put his vehicle on pole at 2/5 with SportingBet, you’d very much expect him to take the win at the same price with the same people unless his team mate pulls some shenanigans in the pit stops, and that is reflected in the 11/4 VictorChandler have on both the pole and win for the German. 719 behind Mercedes teammate Hamilton in fourth.

Hamilton’s second run saw him finish clear of Kvyat by. 351 seconds, and Ricciardo, the victor here last year, by.502.

Ricciardo once again confirmed Red Bull’s good form around the circuit by taking P3.

The Force India driver suffered an apparent suspension problem on the exit of Turn 11 during the morning session, his auto ending hitting the barriers and rolling before coming to a halt upside down.

The accident came only three days after drivers attended the funeral of Frenchman Jules Bianchi, who died last week in hospital of injuries sustained at the Japanese Grand Prix nine months ago.

The Mexican admitted Force India had no answers yet about the cause of the failure and said he had not realised something had failed until he saw the replay on television.

“I think our auto has improved a lot and we have plenty of data to analyze from the weekend before, so I think we have plenty of reasons to be optimistic into this weekend”.

Fears for Perez’s safety were quickly eased as he waved to fans at the Hungaroring on his walk to the medical center for a mandatory check. “Getting out of the auto was quite a challenge, but thank God (nothing) happened and I’m here”.

With track temperatures hovering between 40 and 55 degrees, Hamilton added: “It’s incredibly hot, though – like driving in a sauna!”

“Not ideal today, I just didn’t find the balance in the auto”, he said.

But it hardly made a difference, as the two-time F1 champion needed little time to shoot up the morning leaderboard and then went even faster in the afternoon.