Hungarian Grand Prix: Red Bull top wet practice

Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly was fastest in an inconclusive, rain-affected second practice at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Frenchman headed team-mate Max Verstappen by 0.055 seconds and Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes by 0.141secs.

The times were set in a brief dry period early on but all three drivers were on different types of tyre.

Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon crashed on his first lap, in spitting rain, after putting a wheel on the grass at the final corner.

Earlier in the day, Hamilton had been fastest in the first session, which was mostly dry.

More rain is expected over night and there are showers forecast for qualifying day on Saturday.

In the morning session, Hamilton headed Verstappen by 0.165secs, with Vettel just 0.001secs behind the Red Bull.

The wet weather was bad news for Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas, who managed only one in-and-out lap in the first session before having to stop to have an engine change because of a misfire.

Bottas ended the second session fourth quickest, 0.189secs slower than Hamilton but running the ‘medium’ tyre while the Briton was on the slower ‘hard’.

Gasly’s session-topping time was set on the fastest ‘soft’ tyre, while Verstappen was on the medium.

There is normally around 0.5secs or so between each tyre compound.

Behind Bottas, Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo was fifth fastest on the soft tyre, ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen, also on the soft, and then Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on the medium tyre.

Hamilton feeling better

The weather forecast is for occasional showers on Saturday but a dry race on Sunday.

Bottas needs a positive weekend after crashing in German last weekend and missing an opportunity to cut Hamilton’s championship lead – especially as team boss Toto Wolff says he is going to take the summer break which starts after this weekend to make a decision on whether to retain the Finn in 2020.

Bottas said: “In the first timed lap (in the first session), I got an issue with the engine, lost power and then some misfiring, and eventually it went to safety limp-home mode.

“They couldn’t find the issue immediately and that’s why we decided to swap the power unit for second practice and hope for much more laps. But with the conditions we didn’t get that many – like, three proper timed laps in the dry. So not many laps today but it’s fine and at least when I was in the car it felt good.”

Hamilton said he was feeling much better than he had in Germany, where he was affected by a bug and unwell.

“P1 was a good session,” he said. “I naturally wanted to come back into the weekend feeling better and get straight back in the car and get straight on it.

“I was a million times better getting back in the car, still sweating a lot, so still sweating out whatever bug I had, but that’s a good thing.

“The balance seems good. No real issues. I was surprised to see we were close to the Red Bulls and Ferraris. Hopefully that continues to be the case.” -bbc.com