Hungarian Grand Prix: Friday Practice Recap

Two red flag stops and heavy rain meant a lack of track action in FP1 – the opening 60-minute practice session of the weekend. MoneyGram Haas F1 Team drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen had attempted to bank some laps on slick tires before the wet weather arrived but an early off by Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez brought the red flag out just minutes into the session – Hulkenberg and Magnussen forced to abort their runs on the Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires.

With the predicted downpour following, and a second track stoppage caused by Carlos Sainz’s off in the Scuderia Ferrari – it was only in the dying minutes of the session timed laps went up on the board. At the checkered flag Hulkenberg’s fastest lap was a 1:42.706 (P10) – on the Cinturato Green intermediate compound, with Magnussen’s best a 1:42.906 (P11) coming on the Cinturato Blue extreme wet tire.

A completely dry circuit greeted the field for FP2 – teams seizing the opportunity to accumulate laps with the earlier rain having cleared through. Hulkenberg and Magnussen wasted little time in exiting the garage in their respective VF-23s. Hulkenberg started the session running the medium compound with Magnussen on the White hard tire. Baseline runs complete, both drivers switched to the Red soft rubber for their second timed outings.

Hulkenberg duly set a quick lap of 1:18.508 – placing the German P6 on the timesheets. Magnussen logged a best lap of 1:18.504 – the Dane’s time landing P15 overall. High-fuel running concluded Friday’s run program – Hulkenberg utilizing his earlier set of mediums with Magnussen back on the hard rubber through to the checkered.

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team ran a total of 82 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 – 41 each by Hulkenberg and Magnussen.

Kevin Magnussen:

“Today was still useful, we got some dry running there in FP2, FP1 of course was not of much use. It’s interesting none the less. It just feels like a bit of a compromised Friday with this tire situation, a little bit less interesting in a way. It is what it is though and it’s the same for everyone, so we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. I don’t think it’ll change a lot, but we’ll know tomorrow.”

Nico Hulkenberg:

“It was a Friday! We know one-lap pace is our strength and the long run looked a bit more difficult again, it didn’t feel too great from inside the car, so we’re looking into it to see what we can do. Going forward weather-wise, between tomorrow and Sunday it looks very hot, and tomorrow we have the new quali sequence of which tires we can run. Using the hard tire in Q1, I think that will be quite difficult for us, but we’ll see what we can do. We’ll push hard and see if we can progress.” 

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal:

“FP1 was very disrupted because of the rain – there was no clear picture to be taken. In FP2, we did our test program without having any issues which was obviously positive. We need to go through the data of what we’ve seen because we had the cars on different specifications, but all-in-all not unhappy, we’d just like to see what we can take for tomorrow.”

Today's Data

Event: Free Practice 1 & 2 for the Hungarian Grand Prix – Friday July 21
Location: Hungaroring, Budapest
Layout: 4.381-kilometer (2.722-mile), 14-turn circuit
FP1 & FP2 Weather: Rain (FP1) / Cloudy (FP2)
Drivers: Kevin Magnussen & Nico Hulkenberg 

Free Practice 1 (FP1) Rundown:

Hulkenberg: 10th overall (1:42.706), 12 laps completed
Magnussen: 11th overall (1:42.906), 14 laps completed
Fastest: George Russell of Mercedes (1:38.795)

Free Practice 2 (FP2) Rundown:

Hulkenberg: 6th overall (1:18.058), 29 laps completed
Magnussen: 15th overall (1:18.504), 27 laps completed
Fastest: Charles Leclerc of Scuderia Ferrari (1:17.686)