Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel headed Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes in a wet second practice session at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Vettel was 0.272 seconds faster than Bottas, while Lewis Hamilton in the other Mercedes did not set a lap time.
McLaren’s Carlos Sainz was third fastest, ahead of the Racing Points of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll.
In the morning’s dry first session, Hamilton was fastest, 0.086seconds quicker than Bottas.
Only 13 of the 20 drivers set times in the session.
The fastest times were all set on ‘extreme’ wet tyres. Several drivers – including Vettel, Bottas and Sainz – tried the ‘intermediate’ tyres but were not able to go faster.
The weather forecast is for intermittent rain for the rest of the weekend in Budapest.
A number of drivers ran wide, but there were no major incidents despite the difficult conditions.
The day offered no significant clues as to the true competitive order around the Hungaroring this weekend.
Red Bull, Mercedes’ closest challengers so far this season, were off the pace in the dry first session, but their chief engineer Paul Monaghan later admitted they were running with their Honda engine turned down compared to the Mercedes.
Red Bull were also running on different tyres from Mercedes in the first session, preferring to focus on the ‘soft’ tyre, which they found wore out too quickly.
Mercedes technical director James Allison said that he expected a challenge from Red Bull over the weekend.
“It was a great first session,” said Hamilton. “Got everything we needed to do. It’s a shame it rained today. It didn’t leave a lot for us to do in the second session.
“Don’t take too much from the first session – everyone is doing a different programme. But it was going OK. I think it will be a lot closer when we get to P3 and qualifying.”
Article courtesy of BBC Sport
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