Free Practice : Sam Bird leads the way in Budapest

Title contender Sam Bird had the perfect start to his GP2 race weekend setting the fastest laptime of this morning’s Free Practice session at the Hungaroring with a laptime of 1:29.408. The Brit’ finished three tenths ahead of Sergio Canamasas in P2 whilst Bird’s teammate Tom Dillmann completed the top three.

The seventh round of the 2013 season opened this morning in scorching temperatures. All twenty-six drivers opted for Prime Medium Pirelli tyres for the thirty minute long practice session. It was Alexander Rossi who set the early pace right before a yellow flag came out when Felipe Nasr stopped at Turn 14 following a small mistake. The Brazilian was not able to re-join and had to sit out the rest of the session.

When the track was clear, James Calado found some extra pace to improve on Rossi’s laptime and take the top spot on the timesheet, but Bird set both sectors 1 and 2 ablaze to claim P1 with a time eight tenths of a second quicker than his countryman.

Dillmann improved on his personal best as well and moved up to P2 just before Calado lost control of his car at Turn 11, span off track and stopped, putting a premature end to his session as well. Canamasas was then on a mission and took P2.

At the chequered flag, Bird sat pretty at the top of the timings ahead of Canamasas and Dillmann. Calado ended the session fourth ahead of Marcus Ericsson, Johnny Cecotto, Fabio Leimer, Daniel De Jong, Stéphane Richelmi and Jon Lancaster.

With the temperatures rising and the option to use Soft Pirelli tyres, the qualifying session which will take place at 15.55 today promises to be another GP2 classic.