At the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, Lando Norris made an initial impression, topping Formula 1’s initial practice session by just 0.019s over championship frontrunner Oscar Piastri.
Norris posted a 1m16.052s on his initial lap with the soft tyres, after establishing a somewhat quick time on the medium-compound Pirellis in the first section of the session.
The early runs were conducted on the hard and medium tyres, with substantial progress appearing within the initial 20 minutes of FP1.
Among those, Norris registered a 1m16.837s, having consistently improved during those initial laps and becoming the initial driver in the session to get below the 1m17s mark.
Charles Leclerc then commenced the soft-tyre runs and achieved a 1m16.791s to beat Norris’ lap, even though the McLaren driver’s time on the C4s remained too challenging for Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen to overcome on their initial soft times.
Norris then destroyed that, gaining almost half a second over Leclerc in the middle section to post a 1m16.052s. Piastri followed his team-mate’s time and set a better first sector, but lost time to Norris over the rest of the lap and crossed the line 0.142s behind.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
The championship leader then attempted another run at Norris’ benchmark, discovering more pace in the middle section to get within 0.019s of the Briton on the same set of tyres.
Leclerc improved to get within 0.217s, but a four-tenth difference followed him and fourth-placed Isack Hadjar as the Frenchman displayed strong early pace in his Racing Bulls machinery. Hadjar had split the Ferraris, as Hamilton concluded the session fifth.
Oliver Bearman was sixth in the timing order, a mere 0.002s clear of Andrea Kimi Antonelli – who went faster than George Russell by half a tenth. Verstappen and Lance Stroll completed the top 10.
Fernando Alonso was absent from the session because of a back injury, so Aston Martin reserve Felipe Drugovich substituted for the double F1 champion – he placed 16th, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, who mentioned sliding throughout the lap, and Franco Colapinto.
Sauber stand-in Paul Aron, driving instead of Nico Hulkenberg for FP1, came to a standstill at Turn 13 after encountering a “systems critical alarm” on his steering wheel. The race director decided to deploy a virtual safety car to ensure the Estonian’s car could be removed from the run-off.
The Saubers were at the bottom of the times, as Gabriel Bortoleto’s running seemed to be curtailed beyond the soft-tyre runs.
