It was a mixed session for Mercedes in Free Practice 1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton topped the time-sheets and team-mate Valtteri Bottas encountered an engine issue.
Hamilton headed the classification board in a triple-threat between the front-running teams at the top of the times in the Hungaroring’s opening hour and a half long session, getting the better of Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who were second and third respectively.
The top three were covered by only 0.166 seconds around the 4.381 km circuit as the other Red Bull of Pierre Gasly took fourth.
Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen completed the top five in his latest-spec VF-19 and ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who was sixth.
The session started with the huge threat of rain and some drops fell into the first sector as soon as the proceedings began.
Although it did not become a downpour, most teams were able to complete their installation runs without issue.
However after two exploratory tours of the Hungaroring, Mercedes opted to change Bottas’ engine as the Brackley-based outfit reported a problem with the original ICE that it could not trace, so they switched to another power-unit already used in the pool to give itself more time to investigate the gremlin.
Vettel was behind Hamilton’s benchmark for most of the session by 0.166 seconds before Verstappen improved his time by a tenth to pip the Ferrari by only one thousandth of a second.
Verstappen survived two spins in FP1 without issue, firstly, losing the rear of his Honda-powered RB15 racer at the final corner in the early stages then towards the end found himself in the wrong direction in the run-off area for the 90-degree right hand turn at the beginning of the third sector.
Leclerc was well off the leading pace after a messy lap, which left the young-Monegasque driver 1.1 seconds behind on his C4 red side-walled soft tyre run, and though he made a steady improvement before the session ended, he could not jump Magnussen’s best effort and wound up 0.955 seconds adrift.
Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg came home seventh and in-front of McLaren duo Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz who were eighth and ninth respectively as Kimi Raikkonen rounded out the top ten for Alfa Romeo Racing.
The other Renault of Daniel Ricciardo took 11th place and ahead of Haas VF-19 racer of Romain Grosjean, who struggled more than his fifth-placed team-mate en route to 12th as the Frenchman reported “everything, understeer, oversteer, it’s like Monza’s wings.” to his team over the radio.
Grosjean like at last weekend’s German Grand Prix was running the season-opening spec VF-19 as the Kannapolis-Banbury squad continued to analyse it’s race issues.
The two Toro Rosso’s followed with Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon ending opening practice in 13th and 14th respectively, in-front of Racing Point’s Sergio Perez who was 15th and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi who finished 16th.
ROKiT Williams Racing’s George Russell was 2.416 seconds off of Hamilton’s benchmark but showed some early promise in fighting at the back of the midfield as the reigning FIA Formula 2 Champion took 17th and ahead of Racing Point’s Lance Stroll who came home 18th in FP1 as the latter suffered an earlier spin in the session.
The other Williams FW42 of Robert Kubica and the aforementioned Bottas brought up the rear with the latter unable to post a lap time.
You can see the full Formula 1 Rolex Magyar Nagydij 2019 Free Practice 1 Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1011/hungary/practice-1.html
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