Lando Norris topped the timesheets in Free Practice 2 ahead of Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday.
The McLaren driver finished 0.243 seconds ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, despite the latter’s significant upgrade package this weekend.
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Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was third, 0.397 off the pace, while it was a better session for Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez, who came in seventh.
British Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton could only muster seventh, with team-mate George Russell and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen slotting in ahead of him.
Charles Leclerc was involved in a heavy crash in Budapest which brought out a brief red flag.
The Monegasque lost control at turn four and spun into the barrier.
Luckily, the car nor the driver looked too damaged as Leclerc climbed out, and Sauber’s Guanyu Zhou almost had an identical incident later on in the session.
Norris proved once again that the McLaren is arguably the best car on the grid at the moment and the Brit is keen to make the improvements necessary to compete for the win on Sunday.
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Lando leads the way, Perez finds pace again and a stellar lap sees Magnussen in the top six 👏#F1 #HUNGARIANGP PIC.TWITTER.COM/URFYI3DMIM
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He said: “A good first day. Definitely a bit more work to do to be more comfortable. I feel like we have the speed in the car; it’s just being able to deliver it when you need to.
“Felt good today but definitely (would like a) bit more from a comfort side so I can deliver a little bit more than one lap a day.”
Russell presented a realistic assessment of where Mercedes are at after their back-to-back wins in Britain and Austria.
He added: “Lando was looking really quick. I don’t think Max is too far behind. I think there was probably a power difference between those two on the qualifying laps.
“And then race run, Lando and Max again look a little bit out in front. We need to understand, because in hot conditions of Austria and Barcelona we were off the pace of those two, and in the cooler conditions of Silverstone and Canada we were ahead of them.
“(We) will be in the mix for the top four. Checo seems quite quick today so that might be a bit of a surprise having a fight there.”
The racing will resume on Saturday for the final practice session, before qualifying.
The Hungarian Grand Prix will get underway on Sunday at 2pm GMT.
