Hot temperatures slightly hinder the W15's performance, claim Hamilton and Russell

Having won the last two races in Austria and Great Britain, Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton feel that their W15 was slightly struggling for outright pace in the brutally hot conditions on the opening day of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Both drivers completed runs on the Soft and Medium tyres, saving the two sets of hards for the rest of the weekend.

The second practice saw George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finish 5th and 7th respectively, a couple of tenths behind the field-leading McLarens and Red Bulls.

Expanding on his day in the scorching conditions, the two-time F1 race winner insisted that his team will need to find further gains if it really wants to challenge the two leading outfits at the Hungaroring.

"It was a very hot day out there today! It wasn’t quite as bad in the car as I was expecting it to be, but I am sure that will change during the race on Sunday. Everyone in the garage is doing a great job working in such challenging conditions, with temperatures upwards of 35°C in there.

"We got a lot of laps in today on the long run. That is really useful data for us to go through tonight. It will help dictate our strategy for the rest of the weekend and inform any improvements we can make to the car ahead of tomorrow. The McLarens and Red Bulls looked very quick today, so we know we’ve got some ground to make up.

"We don’t seem to be quite as competitive in these very hot conditions so that is something we need to understand. We’re excited to see what we can do tomorrow and hopefully we will be in the mix in the top-five," Russell concluded.

His team-mate Lewis Hamilton was less content than Russell, urging his team to look into the issues that negatively affected his car's performance during his qualifying simulation run.

"It is definitely very hot here this weekend. It typically is here in beautiful Budapest at this time of year! Today wasn’t our best day of the season so far. The car set-up didn’t feel great, and we weren’t on our best form.

"We made a few small tweaks between the sessions but nothing major. We’ve got some ideas as to why the car wasn’t at its best though so we will work hard on it overnight, looking to make improvements ahead of tomorrow.

"The competitive order is very close once again out there. Whilst our single lap pace wasn’t the best, our long run was decent. We are still a step behind the ultimate pace at the front but will do what we can to close as much of that gap as possible for Saturday," said the seven-time world champion.

Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin has revealed that Mercedes have brought further new parts to its W15, but the team still needs to understand how the upgrades affected the car's balance.

"We've had a productive day. We've got some development parts on the car and have been using the sessions to understand the effect they are having on the car balance. The track has been very hot, which is giving the tyres a tough time, but it's a good test of whether we've improved our long run performance.

"The single lap balance isn't where we need it yet, but we've got time to work on that overnight and in FP3 tomorrow. There's plenty of areas where we can find a bit more pace on both the single lap and long run, so it's encouraging that if we can make a bit of progress, we should be in a strong position for the rest of the weekend."