Red Bulls take fight to Hamilton in Hungary as Force India pull out of FP2 following Perez smash in morning

Lewis Hamilton went quickest on day one of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, beating Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat by just over three tenths of a second on a day when Force India was forced to sit out the afternoon session following a huge first-session crash involving Sergio Perez.

Perez’s accident came an hour into the morning session. The Force India driver went offline in the exit of Turn 11 and as the car ran across the kerbing the rear suspension failed. Perez spun across to the other side of the track, hit the barrier nose-first and as the car was pitched back towards the track it dug in and was flipped upside down.

Perez radioed through to his team that he was “OK” and quickly emerged from the wrecked car. The red flags were immediately displayed, halting running.

The accident caused significant damage to the Mexican’s car and the repairs necessary immediately ruled him out of the afternoon session, but with investigations into the cause of the suspension failure ongoing the team also opted not to run Nico Hulkenberg in the second 90-minute session.

After the red flag for Perez’s crash, Hamilton set the fastest lap of the morning with a time of 1:25.141, with Rosberg slotting into P2 with his best time of 1:25.250.

The red flags came out again late on, however, when Kimi Räikkönen, suffered a front wing failure on his Ferrari as he mounted the kerbs at Turn 12. Despite the incident, which also led to a punctured tyre, Räikkönen was able to hold third place on the timesheet with a lap of of 1:25.812.

Ferrari’s difficulties in the session were compounded by Sebastian Vettel encountering a power unit issue that led to a loss of power. He ended the opening session sixth fastest.

Red Bull’s competitiveness around the tight and twisting Hungarian circuit, which is more forgiving of the team’s power deficit, was confirmed in the afternoon.

In the opening half hour, Hamilton was again quickest, the championship leader recording a lap of 1:25.613 to head the timesheet. Six tenths behind in second place was Ricciardo. Rosberg was third ahead of Kvyat.

Räikkonen was the first to bolt on the option soft tyre and the improvement was immediate and significant. Prior to taking on the tyre, the Finn lay in P7 with a time of 1:27.874, but with the option tyre onboard he was able to gain more than two seconds and he stole into P1 with a time of 1:25.134.

Hamilton might have quickly beaten him as he moved to the yellow-banded Pirelli that but he went off at Turn 4 and abandoned the lap. That allowed Rosberg to eclipse Räikkönen with a time of 1:24.668, which put him 0.466 up on the Finn.

Hamilton was already on his next lap, however, and he claimed top spot with a lap of 1:23.949, seven tenths of a second ahead of his team-mate.

With Rosberg struggling for pace the position of closest challenger to Hamilton’s time went to Kvyat, who took second place with a lap 0.351 down on the Mercedes driver’s best.

Last year's Hungarian GP winner Ricciardo confirmed Red Bull’s good form by slotting into P3 with a time just 0.15s off Kvyat.

Then the long run practice began and here again Red Bull looked competitive; Ricciardo put in a series of laps in the 1m 28.2s range which underlined that the team should go well on the soft tyre in race conditions, Kvyat was on a similar pace of a shade slower.

The positive afternoon for Red Bull quickly evaporated, however. After returning to the medium tyres for final race preparation work, Ricciardo was settling into a longer stint when his engine blew in spectacular fashion. The Australian pulled over as the red flags came out briefly. “I think I was going too fast, the engine’s gone,” joked the Australian driver to his pit wall.

It was engine four for the Australian so overnight the team will fit engine five, which Ricciardo took in Austria with the accompanying penalty. Speaking in the press conference an hour after the session, team boss Christian Horner confirmed that Renault's long awaited development update will not come until the Russian Grand Prix, so Ricciardo will be hard pressed to make to then as it will mean doing six races on the unit being fitted tonight.

Behind Ricciardo on the timesheet was Rosberg with Räikkönen fifth. Carlos Sainz was a creditable sixth for Toro Rosso on a circuit which should suit their car, while team-mate Max Verstappen lost significant time with an engine issue and ended the FP2 session 16th.

Sebastian Vettel didn't look comfortable in the Ferrari with two spins in 90 minutes during FP2; he might have been closer to the front of the pack, but the Ferrari driver spun on his quick lap and had to settle for seventh place.

Behind him, perhaps surprisingly, was McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, the Spaniard setting a time of 1:25.752 to finish ahead of the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa. Williams tend to mask their pace on a Friday with higher fuel and lower revs, but using last year as a reference Bottas' third place on the grid shows that it is not as bad a circuit for Williams as some make out.

Alonso’s team-mate Jenson Button was 11th, just over two tenths down on the Spaniard, as Honda made the full ERS available to the drivers for the first time this season. Pastor Maldonado was 12th fastest for Lotus, ahead of Sauber’s Felipe Nasr and the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean. Marcus Ericsson took P15 ahead of Verstappen and with Force India absent, the final two places were taken by Manor’s Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi.

It looks as though the soft tyres will be the favoured race tyre for Sunday, so that it likely to lead to a qualifying strategy where teams look to save a new set of soft tyres for the second stint of the race, as part of a two stop strategy. Mercedes looked very quick on the medium tyre and they will press home any advantage they may have at the point in the race when drivers switch to medium tyres, most likely the final stint.

Mercedes has the advantage, then, but there is every reason to believe that Red Bull can fight Williams and Ferrari for the podium this weekend.

2015 Hungarian GP – Free Practice 2

1 L Hamilton Mercedes 1:23.949 36

2 D Kvyat Red Bull Racing 1:24.300 +0.351 29

3 D Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:24.451 +0.502 16

4 N Rosberg Mercedes 1:24.668 +0.719 34

5 K Raikkonen Ferrari 1:25.134 +1.185 30

6 C Sainz Toro Rosso 1:25.599 +1.650 37

7 S Vettel Ferrari 1:25.660 +1.711 26

8 F Alonso McLaren 1:25.752 +1.803 31

9 V Bottas Williams 1:25.881 +1.932 35

10 F Massa Williams 1:25.920 +1.971 31

11 M Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:25.935 +1.986 19

12 J Button McLaren 1:25.994 +2.045 32

13 P Maldonado Lotus 1:26.090 +2.141 36

14 F Nasr Sauber 1:26.379 +2.430 36

15 R Grosjean Lotus 1:26.442 +2.493 39

16 M Ericsson Sauber 1:26.831 +2.882 29

17 R Merhi Manor 1:29.113 +5.164 29

18 W Stevens Manor 1:29.115 +5.166 28

19 S Perez Force India  no time 0

20 N Hulkenberg Force India  no time 0