Zoom Hamilton fastest on day one in Hungary

The second 90-minute free practice session of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend saw Lewis Hamilton top the timesheets for McLaren Mercedes with a best lap of 1:20.554s best. Unusually for this second session, some drivers found the harder prime tyre the quicker of the two while others found late pace on the softer option Bridgestone.

Hamilton’s fastest lap of the session was set on the option tyre. Team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, third fastest this afternoon, lapped at roughly the same pace on both compounds.

A late run from Nelson Piquet vaulted him to second position this afternoon after running mid-field for much of the session. The Brazilian, perhaps boosted by German Grand Prix result, was just under two-tenths off the ultimate pace and a hundredth of a second ahead of Kovalainen. Fernando Alonso continued his solid day in the second Renault with the fourth fastest time.

With just a thousandth of a second between the two, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa both tried the softer tyre at the end of the session, but remained fifth and sixth fastest. After topping the timesheets this morning, neither driver was able to improve on that time this afternoon.

Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica were next up for the BMW Sauber team - Heidfeld almost six-tenths off Hamilton’s best time and Kubica eight-tenths. The Toyota duo of Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock seem to have a nice balance on their TF108s as they posted the ninth and 11th best times.

Williams Toyota opted to run both Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima on the soft tyres early on and they both struggled for pace. Later in the session on the same tyre again both would make gains with Rosberg setting the tenth best time between the two works Toyota drivers and Nakajima 14th despite two spins.

Mark Webber and David Coulthard were closely matched again for the Red Bull Renault team in 12th and 13th positions while Sebastien Bourdais had a relatively trouble-free run to 15th in the sister Toro Rosso Ferrari. Sebastian Vettel, who lost most of the morning session due to a hydraulics issue this morning, got an extra lap into this session before his STR3 ground to a halt once again. With nine laps completed from three hours of possible running, the young German driver has a lot of catching up to do on Saturday.

Towards the back and Jenson Button set the 16th best time in his Honda with a late session gain ahead of the Force India Ferrari duo of Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil. Rubens Barrichello was 19th best in the second Honda ahead of the unfortunate Vettel.

Earl ALEXANDER
© CAPSIS International