F1, GP of Hungary: Ferrari was the best on Friday and alternated 1 between Leclerc and Sainz

The Hungarian Grand Prix started with good feelings for Ferrari. Although the first free practices are not always a reference, as many teams use them to test new implementations, Red Bull could not fight for the best time against the Italian team, after Charles Leclerc signed a 1: 18.445 with soft tires, three tenths better than Carlos Sainz did in the morning free practice.

This time, Leclerc had no rivals on the red tires nor in the average, in which he also knew how to be the fastest. Even less did he have the battle he fought in the first training session with Max Verstappen, who didn’t struggle to be the fastest in the second session and barely finished fourthbehind also Lando Norris, second among the Ferraris, who reinforced McLaren’s good performance on the Hungaroring circuit.

The second training session began with a single file led by Sebastian Vettel, who competes in Hungary in the first of his last ten Grands Prix after announcing his retirement on Thursday from an Instagram account created Wednesday night by a man who had not been on social media until now. On medium tires, Aston Martin seemed to do better and that’s how the four-time German champion managed to finish seventh.

At the start of the session, Checo Pérez was the first to set a fast time, which Sainz quickly improved by 80 thousandths (1: 20.487) and then Alonso lowered. But Verstappen was missing and, basically, Leclerc, who stopped the clock after 5 minutes of training 1: 18.911 to finish first, with a time that leaves him far behind his competitors: 0.743 behind the Dutchman, 1.403 behind the Spaniard from Alpino and more than a second and a half behind his teammate, all with medium tires.

A few laps later, Sainz moved up to second place, but he was still far, 637 thousandths from Leclerc, who had flown in his first lap. The Monegasque seemed to have adapted much better to the yellow tire, after his teammate had been the fastest in the morning but on soft tires.

This time, with the exception of a few like Albon – who was sixth in soft-, the yellow ones were the tires used at the start of the session, as regards the performance of the Mercedes, which could not match what it achieved in the first free practice and underwent those changes that the team made in the paddock in the two hours between each test. With the reds, Russell temporarily moved up to fourth place.

With that tire it was that too Lando Norris took Leclerc’s lead for a moment (1: 18.662). But the laps of the Ferraris with the fastest tire were still missing. Therefore, the Monegasque regained first place with a record in the second sector (1: 18.445) and took (just) two tenths from McLaren, while Checo Pérez, on soft, reached only sixth place, at 952 thousandths, a time that then left him ninth.

Sainz, on the other hand, was not allowed by the traffic to make a fast lap on a narrow circuit and had to settle for the third time, at 231 thousandths. “Traffic with this stupid boy (Latifi)”the Spaniards complained.

Verstappen did not fare better and it could only be fourth in what looked like a virtual draw for second place, as Norris was down 0.217, Sainz 0.231 and the Dutch 0.283. Fifth, meanwhile, was Daniel Ricciardo so much so that McLaren closed a great first day in Hungary, ahead of champions Alonso and Vettel.

The activity will continue this Saturday at 8 in Argentina with the third training session, while the ranking will start at 11 with a 90% chance of rain, which could complicate the chances of those who are unable to place themselves in the top positions. On a tight and complicated circuit for overtaking cars, what happens in Q3 will be crucial for Sunday, when the 13th final of the year will be played from 10, broadcast by Star + and Fox Sports.