Hungaroring FP1: Hamilton tops as Mercedes flex their muscles

Lewis Hamilton set the quickest lap of first practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix with a time more than half a second ahead of his 2015 pole position time of 1m22s on a morning when Mercedes dominated proceedings.

Fresh from signing a new two-year contract with Mercedes, Nico Rosberg took second place on the timesheet with a lap of 1:21.584.

Hamilton’s table topping time of 1:21.347, set after the track had tried following morning rain, was in large part due to two the Mercedes driver using a set of supersoft tyres, a step down Pirelli’s range from recent years, and also due the fact that the track has been completely resurfaced in time for this year’s race.

Hamilton’s time was a whopping 1.644s ahead of third-placed Sebastian Vettel, with the German finishing nine hundredths of a second ahead of Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. Both Ferrari drivers also used the supersoft tyres to set their best times.

That was not the case for the team expected to be Mercedes’ closest challenger this weekend – Red Bull Racing. Both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen ran with the soft compound tyre during the opening session, with the Australian driver finishing fifth, 1.8s adrift of Hamilton but 0.283s clear of team-mate Max Verstappen.

The two-by-two nature of the session stretched further, with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button taking seventh and eighth place in the session respectively. The final two top 10 positions were filled by Haas’ Romain Grosjean and Force India’s Sergio Perez.

The car of Grosjean’s team-mate Esteban Gutierrez was once again handed to Ferrari Academy driver and GP3 title leader Charles Leclerc who set the morning’s 16th fastest time, 1:25.181 22. The Monegasque driver was just over a second adrift of Grosjean.

Over at Renault, Grosjean’s compatriot Esteban Ocon finished in P18 as he sat in for Kevin Magnussen. Ocon managed a useful 28 laps in the session, 22 more than regular race Jolyon Palmer, whose session was wrecked by technical woes that saw him sit out the bulk of the 90 minutes.