Lando Norris topped the second free practice for the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen in second, as Charles Leclerc crashed halfway into the session.
McLaren went back to the top after a subdued first practice session, with Norris taking the top spot and showing once again he was a contender with this weekend's race.
Verstappen, in his upgraded Red Bull RB20, was only good for second with some gap to Norris, as there seems to be a question mark regarding the team's new upgrade especially that Sergio Perez in the other car, running the old spec was fourth and only two tenths slower than his teammate.
Carlos Sainz showed that Ferrari are in the mix being third, but his teammate, Leclerc did himself no favours after crashing out and losing some valuable running time.
Mercedes did not look as good as they were in Silverstone, but expect them to be in the mix.
Still the final pecking order is yet to emerge and there are more questions to be answered, which will happen as the weekend progresses and as mentioned in the FP1 report, keeping the tyres in the proper window for the full lap will prove a challenge.
Buildup towards FP2
Ferrari were the fastest in FP1, a bit of a surprise given their recent struggles, unless the revised floor the have this weekend delivered some kind of a miracle.
While the early signs are promising, it would be safer to say that we still need to see more from Red Bull's latest upgrade before we judge if the reigning Formula 1 Champions have regained their advantage.
McLaren and operating without any upgrades, Mercedes just minor stuff, but the latter have been up there while the former were a bit down the order, while Aston Martin did not seem in a good place despite a massive upgrade as well.
What of Sauber and their major car overhaul, many questions will be answered in FP2.
FP2 Session Highlights
The hot conditions carried on from the morning session to the afternoon, but the temperatures dropped a bit, air temperature at 31 degrees Celsius while track temperatures dropped to 48 degrees.
After missing FP1, handing over his Haas to Oliver Bearman, Nico Hulkenberg was eager to get going, and was the first to get out on track to get his Hungarian GP weekend officially going.
The Medium tyre was the compound of choice at the start for the drivers who hit the track, except for Oscar Piastri and Norris who were on Hards.
Lewis Hamilton on his first timed lap, ran wide at the exit of Turn 11, hitting the kerbs hard but went on to set the fastest lap time, that was soon eclipsed by Perez who goes faster.
Soon Verstappen joined the party and started his first flying lap, on Mediums, but goes fifth fastest, the comes the explanation, he reports: "My brakes are not working, they're not biting."
Verstappen pitted after that and then was out again for some more running. He went second fastest a tenth and a half slower than his teammate.
15 minutes into the session, Piastri ran wide and goes through the gravel trap at the exit of Turn 12, while Sainz also had a big moment at the same place.
Norris also had a wobble at Turn 12, and went wide into the run-off area avoiding the gravel strip.
Less than 20 minutes into the session, Leclerc brought out the first Red Flag of the weekend, as he took too much kerb coming out of Turn 4, lost control of the car and spun into the wall damaging the left side of his SF-24.
It was quite an impact and Ferrari would be worried about Leclerc's gearbox, not to mention any damage to that new floor.
With the stricken #16 Ferrari cleared from the track, and the barriers inspected and repaired, the session was restarted with less than 30 minutes remaining on the clock.
As the session was resumed, the teams set out to do some qualifying runs and sent their drivers out on Soft tyres. The drivers lined up in the pitlane waiting their turn to go. Red Bull took their time both drivers waiting in the garage.
George Russell went fastest, the Hamilton goes second behind him, while Zhou Guanyu spun also at Turn 4 spun but miraculously keeps it out of the barriers and just misses Perez, but silly Zhou blames the Red Bull driver.
Norris then goes fastest and Sainz second fastest as Perez goes third, while Piastri has a close moment with a Haas, but no contact.
Verstappen soon does his flying lap but ends up second fastest, two and half tenths slower than Norris.
The final 15 minutes, the teams fueled up their cars and sent their drivers out for some long runs and data collection.
The session was concluded with practice starts.
How they finished
Norris was fastest with a lap time of 1:17,788, 0.243s faster than Verstappen in second and Sainz was third fastest 0.397s off the pace of the McLaren driver.
Perez showed some decent pace and was fourth fastest in the un-upgraded Red Bull RB20 and was 0.467s off the pace.
In fifth was Russell, a bit over half a second down from the top time and 0.021s faster than Kevin Magnussen who was a strong sixth in the Haas.
Hamilton was seventh fastest in the other Mercedes and was 0.575s slowed than Norris with Daniel Ricciardi 0.008s further behind the Briton in eighth.
Alex Albon was a decent ninth in the Williams ahead of Fernando Alonso who was tenth fastest in the yet to be improved Aston Martin AMR24.
While Norris was fastest, Piastri was down in 13th, over eight tenths slower than his teammate, while the Alpine seem to have lost their brief encouraging form, Esteban Ocon 14th and Pierre Gasly 16th fastest.
After his brief heroics in FP1 Zhou ended FP2 last.
Hungarian GP FP2 Classification
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