Hamilton tops first practice as Perez crashes

F1 Grand Prix, GP Hungary, Hungaroring

Lewis Hamilton topped the first practice session at Hungary in typically hot conditions. Most attention however went to Sergio Perez who had a rolling crash as a rear suspension element failed while accelerating out of a corner.

The World Champion recorded a 1:25.141 and thereby proved little more than a tenth quicker than his teammate Nico Rosberg. The latter did several quick runs but failed to topple his Hamilton.

Still, all that happened after Perez' crash. The Mexican had run very wide through the outside of the exit of turn 11, ending up with a right rear suspension failure that pulled his car right, into the barriers. It subsequently flipped over and came to a stop on the tarmac. Perez however was able to extract himself out of the car before marshalls turned the car back onto its four wheels to be removed from the track.

Kimi Raikkonen later on also had a mechanical problem on his Ferrari. As the Finn tried to improve on his lap, his Ferrari’s front wing collapsed as he ran wide over the saw-tooth kerb exiting Turn 12. As he limped back to the pits without the wing and with a flat front left tyre, the session was red flagged again. The session still got restarted, but in the little time that was left, nobody else managed to improve.

Lotus' test driver Jolyon Palmer meanwhile didn't get much running done, coming out on track just 4 times but a telemetry-related issue prevented him from setting a timed lap. Team mate Pastor Maldonado similarly only completed a limited programme, ending up 17th fastest.