Hamilton tops Hungary practice
Friday 29th July 2011
Lewis Hamilton began his Hungarian Grand Prix weekend as he ended Sunday's race in Germany - out in front.
Aiming for back-to-back victories for the first time in over a year, Hamilton finished the opening 90-minute practice session at the Hungaroring at the top of the timesheet.
Clearly still on a high from his success at the Nurburgring five days ago, Hamilton deposed championship leader Sebastian Vettel from top spot with around 15 minutes remaining.
With overcast skies and an air temperature of 20 degrees, far below the searing heat normally experienced at this time of the year, the much cooler climes clearly assisted Hamilton's McLaren.
Around what is rightly regarded as a tight and twisty track, the 26-year-old covered the 14 turns of the 2.722-mile circuit in a time of one minute 23.350secs.
For comparison purposes, and to underline just how much more there is to come from Hamilton and his rivals, the time was just under five seconds off Vettel's pole lap of a year ago.
Vettel had to settle for second on this occasion, 0.214secs behind Hamilton, with Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari a further 0.078secs adrift.
Both men will be hoping for far hotter temperatures for the rest of the weekend if they are to put Hamilton and McLaren in the shade.
Mark Webber was fourth quickest in his Red Bull, 0.316secs down, although the 34-year-old Australian's session drew to a close much quicker than he had envisaged.
Twenty-one minutes from the close, Webber spun, burying the nose of his car in a barrier before twice pirouetting through 360 degrees.
Remarkably, the only damage sustained was the loss of the front wing that was collected by a marshal as he was able to slowly return to the garage.
Jenson Button and Felipe Massa ensured the three leading teams covered the top six places, with the Briton - competing in his 200th grands prix this weekend - 0.422secs down.
As for Brazilian Massa, who remains confident of beating Alonso at some stage this season, he was cut adrift as he was 0.765secs off the pace.
The Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg - in his 100th race - and Michael Schuamacher were down in seventh and eighth, the former just under a second shy of Hamilton, and the latter fractionally over a second.
Sauber's Sergio Perez and Vitaly Petrov in his Renault were ninth and 10th respectively, 1.2secs and 1.7secs down.
Renault reserve driver Bruno Senna, being given his first outing in the car this season with Nick Heidfeld making way, was a highly creditable 0.8secs behind Petrov in 15th.
Paul di Resta was 12th in his Force India, two seconds down and narrowly ahead of reserve Nico Hulkenberg as Adrian Sutil sat out the session.
At the bottom of the standings were Hispania duo Vitantonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo, the latter 6.5secs adrift.
Credit: ESPN STAR (www.espnstar.com)
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