Hamilton stays ahead in second practice

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix second practice

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Lewis Hamilton completed a successful Friday by ending the second practice session fastest as he had the first.

The Mercedes driver was over two-tenths of a second faster than team mate Nico Rosberg when the pair ran on the quicker soft tyres, and he enjoyed a similar margin on the medium compounds.

During the long runs at the end of the session Rosberg had to be told to use a lower gear in the first corner to guard against “engine damage”.

Drivers discovered the soft tyres were over one-and-a-half seconds quicker per lap than the harder medium compound. Sebastian Vettel was one of several drivers who found a few tenths more than that when he went third-quickest with a 1’25.111.

Fernando Alonso was fourth, almost a full second slower than Hamilton. He was separated from team mate Kimi Raikkonen by the McLaren of Kevin Magnussen.

Felipe Massa had a spin early in the session, damaging a set of tyres which forced Williams to change their long-runs plans in the final half-hour. He ended up tenth behind Daniel Ricciardo, the other Williams of Valtteri Bottas, and Jenson Button.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’24.48238
26Nico RosbergMercedes1’24.7200.23838
31Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’25.1110.62933
414Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’25.4370.95526
520Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’25.5801.09834
67Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’25.7301.24830
73Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’25.9831.50129
877Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’25.9991.51737
922Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’26.2341.75233
1019Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’26.4021.92018
1126Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’26.6892.20742
1225Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’26.7032.22137
1327Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’26.7892.30739
1499Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’26.9192.43741
1511Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’27.0132.53139
1613Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’27.0192.53740
178Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’27.0212.53914
1821Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’27.4802.99832
1910Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’28.3703.88835
2017Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1’28.4693.98726
214Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1’28.5864.10435
229Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1’29.0364.55434

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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Keith Collantine
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24 comments on “Hamilton stays ahead in second practice”

  1. HAM | HAM ROS VET ALO RIC

    That’s my prediction.

    1. @vettel1: I would love to see Vettel ahead of Ricciardo but I’m sceptical. Let’s at least hope the car or the team doesn’t fail when it matters.

      1. Nah- Dan to beat Seb again for sure :)

        Seb is back with his driving style now, obviously needed to change his style to suit the new regs, but even the biggest Seb fans cant deny our Aussie boy Dan has done a pretty good job so far!!!

        1. Never understood “driving style” as an explanation for Seb’s woes. His car has generally been down on power compared to Daniel for most of the season. He’s usually slower, quite a bit slower, through the speed traps. This FP2 was one of the freakishly rare exceptions, for once SV was 3 kph faster through the traps than Daniel. I think that last happened in Malaysia.

          You don’t see these discrepancies between any other pair of drivers. Nando and Kimi have been within 1 kph of one another all season, and which one is faster flips back and fourth.

          1. That could be explained by downforce levels though. Vettel may be running higher rear wing levels generally in an attempt to recoup some of the lost rear downforce.

            But equally, there is the theory that Renault have been using Vettel’s car almost like a “test bed” for their upgrades, hence his well above average unreliability rates.

            Of course, we are all just speculating however.

          2. That could be explained by downforce levels though.

            No, it can’t. If it were downforce levels than (1) Seb would show high fuel consumption than Daniel, and (2) Seb would be quicker through downforce dependent sectors. Neither is true.

            If the “VET is having trouble with the new cars handling/lack of downforce” argument were true then I’d expect to see he and Daniel doing similar times through the “power sectors” of various circuits and Seb being slower in the “handling sectors”. The opposite is true. If you look at where DR gets his edge on SV its invariably by running up a big margin in the power sectors and not by his mastery of flinging the RB10 through the twisty bits.

          3. Teams/drivers who ran high downforce setups always paid a price in terms of top speed. That was a tradeoff with cornering speed. Under the new rules they pay an additional price in terms of higher fuel consumption and that’s forcing everyone, both within and across teams, to run similar downforce levels.

        2. David Thompson
          25th July 2014, 18:39

          Remember, everyone now has almost exactly the same fuel consumption – as close, from below, to 100 kg per race as possible. A car running higher downforce will have to lean out its fuel mixture to reach that goal. And the teams closely guard information on their fuel mixture settings, so anything anyone says about Ricciardo vs. Vettel on fuel consumption is bunk.

    2. No I disagree, I do think he has shown a turnaround since Monaco in that he has been closing on Ricciardo since then. Had it not been for Red Bull misjudging pit stop times, he would have beaten Ricciardo in Canada and Britain I think. Austria would just be skepticism.

      I have no problem admitting that @garns – I’ve been a fan of Ricciardo’s for a while now!

  2. where are thou Williams?

    Interesting results, the FRIC ban has certainly rearranged the cars strengths and weaknesses as illustrated last GP. Magnussen and McLaren might be back on track since the Aus GP. Excitinggggg.

    1. Williams are waiting for qualifying and race, where the pace matters.

      1. David Thompson
        25th July 2014, 18:45

        If Massa can keep out of his own way.

  3. Alonso always 1 of the drivers with the fewest number of laps, while the Mercedes duo amongst the guys with the most laps.

    1. David Thompson
      25th July 2014, 18:42

      Worries about engine/gearbox fragility and consequent grid penalties? Mercedes can bet that its cars will beat the rest of the field from deep on the grid.

  4. Still time for Rosberg/Mercedes to scan the Hamilton data and improve (just taking the Villeneuve ‘Lewis is there to improve Rosberg’ line here!) Just to complete Villeneuve’s thought: Vettel to Mercedes after Hamilton has done the Rosberg-training, any substance to that rumour?

    1. Hamilton still has a year left of his contract, and assuming Mercedes keep their form going into next year, I don’t see him switching teams any time soon.

      1. Neither did I, but I’m surprised and a bit non-plussed and somewhat suspicious about the Red Bull line here. Marko, Horner etc. seem very happy to be spinning out the story, wry smiles on faces, that Vettel is being sounded out by other teams, including Mercedes. Why would they even want to feed that rumour about their own driver? Seems strange. Maybe to unsettle Hamilton/Mercedes? Can’t quite work it out.

        1. I imagine it originated from Mercedes with the intention to light a fire under Hamilton’s management.

  5. Lewis looks particularly strong on his long runs on the soft tire, likely the preferred choice for the race.

    1. David Thompson
      25th July 2014, 18:44

      Well, of course. But only as long as it lasts.

  6. Could be hard for Hulkenberg to score again. I heard there is a chance of rain on Sunday, lets hope for it!

    1. I think Hulk can score points …If you look at german gp Practice 1&2 results they were 13th and 14th fastest…but on saturday they were much quicker…PLUS they have a lot of data to analyse today..

  7. David Thompson
    25th July 2014, 18:49

    “Rosberg had to be told to use a lower gear in the first corner to guard against ‘engine damage’.”
    Anyone know what that means? I know how overrevving can damage an engine, but not underrevving.

    1. harvesting putting strain while on the power?

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