Hungaroring, FP2: Hamilton quickest but Red Bulls take the fight to Mercedes

Hamilton leads rapid but unreliable Red Bulls

Lewis Hamilton continued to set the pace at the Hungaroring, setting a day’s best time of 1:23.949 to finish just three tenths of a second clear of Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat, with his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo third ahead of Nico Rosberg.

Prior to the start of the session, Force India took the decision to withdraw from the afternoon’s running. Sergio Perez’s car was ruled out by the significant damage sustained in his heavy crash in the morning session and with investigations into the cause of the suspension failure at the root of the accident, the team also opted not to run team-mate Nico Hulkenberg in the second session.

The second session was run in similarly hot conditions to the morning running and in the early running, on the prime medium Pirelli compound, Hamilton was fastest, the championship leader recording a lap of 1:25.613 to head the timesheet with half an hour gone in the session. Six tenths behind in second place was Daniel Ricciardo, the Red Bull driver confirming the team’s morning competitiveness around a tight and twisting circuit that forgives the power deficiency of the team’s RB11. Nico Rosberg was third ahead of the second Red Bull Racing car of Daniil Kvyat.

With half an hour gone, Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkonen was the first to bolt on the option soft tyre and the improvement was immediate and significant. Prior to taking on the option rubber, the Finn sat in P7 with a time of 1:27.874 but with the softer tyre onboard he was able to gain more than two seconds and he stole into P1 with a time of 1:25.134.

Hamilton might have quickly beaten as he moved to the yellow-banded Pirelli that but he went off at Turn 4 and abandoned the lap.

That allowed Rosberg to eclipse Räikkönen with a time of 1:24.668, which put him 0.466s up on the Finn.

Hamilton was already on his next lap, however, and setting purple sector times. There was no off this time and he claimed top spot with a lap of 1:23.949, seven tenths of a second ahead of his team-mate.

With Rosberg struggling for pace the position of closest challenger to Hamilton’s time went to Kvyat, who slotted into P2, 0.351 off the Mercedes driver’s time.

Ricciardo once again confirmed Red Bull’s good form around the circuit by taking P3. He set personal bests in all three sectors to lap just 0.15s off Kvyat.

The positive outlook quickly evaporated, however. After returning to the medium tyres for race preparation work, Ricciardo was settling into a longer stint when his engine expired in spectacular fashion. The Australian pulled over but with plumes of smoke reducing visibility and with oil on the track the red flags came out briefly. “I think I was going too fast, the engine’s gone,” joked the Australian driver to his pit wall.

Behind Ricciardo on the timesheet was Rosberg with Räikkönen fifth. Carlos Sainz was a creditable sixth for Toro Rosso (while team-mate Max Verstappen ended the session in P16).

Sebastian Vettel might have been closer to the front of the pack but the Ferrari driver spun on his quick lap and had to settle for seventh place. Behind him, perhaps surprisingly, was McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, the Spaniard setting a time of 1:25.752 to finish ahead of the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa.

Alonso’s team-mate Jenson Button was 11th , just over two tenths down on the Spaniard, while Pastor Maldonado was 12th fastest for Lotus, ahead of Sauber’s Felipe Nasr and the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean. Marcus Ericsson took P15 ahead of Verstappen and with Force India absent, the final two places were taken by Manor’s Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi.