FP1: Ricciardo tops first practice at Hungaroring

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The twisty circuit of the Hungaroring was always set to be one of Red Bulls best events, and the team made a solid first step in making in a good weekend. The early outing however showed that Ferrari may be close, with especially Vettel in the mix early on.

Daniel Ricciardo certainly did what Red Bull expected, completing the 'ring in a mighty 1:17.613 on a set of new softs, but that didn't really gave him much of an advantage to the competition, with Vettel and Verstappen both within a tenth of a second of the Australian's best.

Kimi Raikkonen put his Ferrari in fourth, relegating both Mercedes to 5th and 6th. Valtteri Bottas for instance was noticeably struggling with the handling of his car, and hence also completed less laps as the team were more busy on his car. The doesn't mean others had it easy, as Verstappen momentarily faced the wrong way after pushing a bit too hard in Turn 1.

Friday mornings though are often used a test sessions with teams using the 90 minutes to trial new components, and verify their on-track performance through flow-viz monitoring and sensor systems.

Romain Grosjean was a handy 7th, albeit more than 1.3s down on the pace setter, and with the Renault duo on his heels. Kevin Magnussen completed the top 10.

Results

Pos.No.DriverCarTimeGapLaps
13Daniel RicciardoRed Bull Racing Tag Heuer1:17.613-30
25Sebastian VettelFerrari1:17.692+0.079s24
333Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing Tag Heuer1:17.701+0.088s29
47Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:17.948+0.335s23
544Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:18.036+0.423s28
677Valtteri BottasMercedes1:18.470+0.857s20
78Romain GrosjeanHaas Ferrari1:18.975+1.362s17
827Nico HulkenbergRenault1:19.025+1.412s14
955Carlos SainzRenault1:19.128+1.515s32
1020Kevin MagnussenHaas Ferrari1:19.187+1.574s29
1110Pierre GaslyScuderia Toro Rosso Honda1:19.352+1.739s30
1214Fernando AlonsoMcLaren Renault1:19.690+2.077s24
1328Brendon HartleyScuderia Toro Rosso Honda1:19.841+2.228s32
1418Lance StrollWilliams Mercedes1:20.012+2.399s33
1531Esteban OconForce India Mercedes1:20.065+2.452s30
162Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren Renault1:20.151+2.538s28
1711Sergio PerezForce India Mercedes1:20.159+2.546s27
1836Antonio GiovinazziSauber Ferrari1:20.293+2.680s31
1935Sergey SirotkinWilliams Mercedes1:20.307+2.694s28
209Marcus EricssonSauber Ferrari1:20.697+3.084s12