Hungaroring, Free Practice: Vandoorne sets the pace

ART ace quickest in Budapest free practice

Stoffel Vandoorne has made his intentions pretty clear regarding his ambitions for this weekend’s GP2 round in Budapest: the Belgian driver set the quickest laptime in today’s free practice in a 1:29.479. He edged Felipe Nasr out of the top spot for 0.006s. Stéphane Richelmi completed the top three.

The session opened under blue skies and in high temperatures. All twenty-six drivers fed onto the track on Pirelli Medium tyres, and it was Sergio Canamasas who set the early pace. However, Nasr was soon able to improve on the Spaniard’s laptime and moved up to P1 - a hairsbreadth ahead of Vandoorne and Johnny Cecotto.

Series leader Jolyon Palmer was the first man to dip under 1m29s, but Nasr went three tenths of a second quicker than the Briton on the following lap to claim the top spot. Vandoorne also found some extra pace to move past Palmer and take P2 – two tenths slower than the Carlin racer. Fifteen minutes into the session, the ART Grand Prix driver went even quicker and with a laptime of 1:29.476 edged Nasr out of the top of the standings.

A minute later, a collision between Palmer and Cecotto took place at turn 2 which sent both men back into the pits. The Venezuelan driver’s session ended prematurely whilst the DAMS mechanics kept busy trying to fix some damage on Palmer’s front left suspension. He could re-join the action with eight minutes left on the clock, but was unable to improve on his personal best time.

At the chequered flag, Vandoorne still sat pretty at the top of the timesheet ahead of Nasr and Richelmi. Palmer finished fourth ahead of Mitch Evans, Cecotto, returnee Kimiya Sato, Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, Simon Trummer and Daniel De Jong.