Ferrari has made its strongest start to a Formula 1 grand prix weekend in a long time, but Charles Leclerc isn’t expecting that advantage to last into qualifying in Hungary.
In tricky, windy conditions on a bumpy Hungaroring, Lewis Hamilton topped Friday’s second practice, with Leclerc 0.148s behind in second as Ferrari enjoyed a half-second advantage over McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Behind fourth-placed Max Verstappen, in a Red Bull that appears to lack outright pace, Mercedes also endured a difficult afternoon with George Russell struggling for rear balance and Kimi Antonelli sliding off the track on his qualifying simulation.
Yet Ferrari driver Leclerc expects Friday’s gaps between the top teams to flatter Mercedes on a messy practice day where few drivers managed to get a lap fully hooked up.
“It’s going to be tight tomorrow, as always. I don’t expect us to be having the gap that we’ve had today. So, we’ll have to do everything perfectly,” Leclerc told Sky.
“It was a relatively strong day from the beginning. I felt quite good with the car and the performance seemed to be good straight away. From Friday to Saturday we see teams making a jump of performance. Normally we are on the back foot on Friday, so it’s a good thing that we have a good Friday. But we still need to stay on it and work hard in order to get better for tomorrow.”
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images
Team principal Fred Vasseur is never one to get overly excited over practice pace, but he couldn’t deny that the pace seemed to be coming relatively easily to the SF-26, which sports a rear wing upgrade in Budapest that delivers additional downforce for the stop-start track.
“So far so good, but it’s not on Friday that you are doing the pole, and even less that you win the race,” Vasseur cautioned. “Let’s see tomorrow. It will be another story.”
Vasseur thinks the tyre wear and overheating on Pirelli’s softest compound is exaggerating the gaps between cars as both drivers and teams work on keeping their rubber in the right operating window throughout a qualifying lap.
“It’s difficult to keep the tyres alive all the lap. It means that if you start to lose, you lose a lot, but everybody will improve until tomorrow afternoon,” the Frenchman added.
“With the red flag in the second part, we were not able to do a proper long stint, and it was in traffic, we had to slow down. We didn’t have a good read of the tyres for the race, but I think it’s the same for everybody, and let’s see.”
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