Hungaroring, FP2: Ricciardo quickest again ahead of Vettel, Bottas

Daniel Ricciardo’s impressive start to the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend continued this afternoon as the Red Bull Racing driver followed his quickest time of the morning with another pacesetting lap in second practice.

A winner here in 2014 and a podium finisher at each of the past two events in Budapest, Ricciardo powered his upgraded Red Bull Racing RB13 to a time of 1:18.455 set on supersoft tyres.

That put him just under two tenths clear of next fastest man Sebastian Vettel, who looked much more comfortable with his Ferrari SF17 following a morning session in which handling issues saw him finish sixth.

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas was third, 0.201 behind Ricciardo, with Kimi Raikkonen fourth ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the second Mercedes. At the end of the session just 0.324 separated the top five drivers.

On soft tyres in the early part of the session Valtteri Bottas was third fastest, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton, with the top five drivers separated by just 0.324s.

After an early period on soft tyres – in which Hamilton was quickest – Vettel was the first to bolt on supersoft tyres and the championship leader took P1 with a time of 1:18.638. While Raikkonen and the Mercedes drivers got close, only Ricciardo found enough pace on the red-banded Pirelli tyres to push past the marker laid down Vettel.

The Australian’s team-mate Max Verstappen finished sixth in the session ahead of Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg.

McLaren’s good start to the weekend continued with both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne again looking competitive for the Honda-powered team. Alonso finished in eighth place with a time of 1:19.815, 1.3s off Ricciardo’s pace but just six hundredths of a second slower than Hulkenberg and two hundredths clear of Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz. Vandoorne, meanwhile, took 10th place just under a tenth of a second slower than his team-mate.

It wasn’t a trouble-free session, however, and two red flags halted proceedings for a time. The first was brought out following a heavy crash involving Pascal Wehrlein. The Sauber driver got out of shape on entry into Turn 11 and he hit the barriers with both side of the front of the car.

The German climbed out of the car unaided but such was the impact that he was taken to the medical centre. He was quickly given the all-clear after precautionary checks.

Later in the session Jolyon Palmer also crashed out. The Briton had already had an incident in FP1 when he went wide over kerbing and damaged the floor of his Renault and in the second session, in which he was forced to run an older specification floor, Palmer again hit trouble.

He lost control on entry to Turn 14 and he skittered off into the barriers causing heavy damage to the right rear of his car.