Hamilton dominates at the Hungaroring

Lewis Hamilton dominated free practice at the Hungaroring, outpacing team-mate Nico Rosberg in both sessions, finishing ahead of the German by just...

Lewis Hamilton dominated free practice at the Hungaroring, outpacing team-mate Nico Rosberg in both sessions, finishing ahead of the German by just under two tenths in the morning and by 0.238s in the afternoon session.

After his efforts of the morning, Hamilton, who has won the Hungarian Grand Prix four times in seven attempts, ran quicker than team-mate Nico Rosberg on both the medium and soft compounds in the afternoon.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for Hamilton, however, as during the afternoon session he complained about his brakes, telling his team he was having trouble stopping the car. Team-mate Rosberg was also less than comfortable during the afternoon, the German frequently asking for advice on where he could improve his times.

In the morning, Sebastian Vettel finished in fifth place but found an improvement in the afternoon, rising to third, taking his RB10 to within seven tenths of a second of Hamilton’s benchmark.

Fernando Alonso repeated his morning placing with the fourth-fastest time. His afternoon best lap of 1:25.437 was six hundredths of a second clear of McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen.

After finishing in third place in the morning session Kimi Raikkonen finished sixth in the afternoon, just under three tenths of a second adrift of team-mate Alonso. Daniel Ricciardo was seventh in the second Red Bull.

Following his second-place finish at last weekend’s German Grand Prix, Williams’ Valtteri Bottas said the tight and twisting Hungaroring circuit might be “a bit difficult for us” and in the morning session the Finn’s team-mate Felipe Massa finished in 10^th place, with Bottas only 15^th behind Pastor Maldonado in the best of the Lotus cars.

Bottas improved in the afternoon, rising to eighth place to finish ahead of Jenson Button in the second McLaren.

It was a less comfortable session for Massa. The Brazilian again finished 10^th in the afternoon but suffered a spin during his option tyre run and then was hampered by a technical issue that restricted him to the garage for some time during the period of the session in which he was expected to be conducting long runs.

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Result

1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:24.482 38

2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:24.720 0.238 38

3 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:25.111 0.629 33

4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:25.437 0.955 26

5 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:25.580 1.098 34

6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:25.730 1.248 30

7 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:25.983 1.501 29

8 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:25.999 1.517 37

9 Jenson Button McLaren 1:26.234 1.752 33

10 Felipe Massa Williams 1:26.402 1.920 18

11 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:26.689 2.207 42