Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc headed McLaren’s Lando Norris in Friday practice at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Leclerc was 0.217 seconds quicker than Norris, who surprisingly beat the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.
Leclerc was comfortably clear of the two drivers who will most likely be his key rivals this weekend.
Sainz was 0.231secs behind his team-mate and world champion Verstappen 0.283secs off the pace.
Mercedes appeared to be struggling. George Russell was their quickest driver in eighth place, 0.910secs slower than Leclerc and behind McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel.
Russell complained of recurring brake locking going into the first corner.
“What the hell is going on at Turn One?” he asked over the radio. “I just can’t get around it without locking brakes.”
Lewis Hamilton was even worse off, in 11th place and 1.102secs behind Leclerc, and complaining the car was “unstable” on his race-simulation run.
Leclerc had to abandon his race-simulation run when he felt a problem with the engine at the start of it, complaining of a lack of torque in fourth gear.
He was told to pit, and he asked: “Is there a problem?” “We’re checking it,” his engineer said.
But he managed to get out on track again, and he had a significant pace advantage over Verstappen, Leclerc as much as 0.3secs ahead on average with both running the medium tyre. Sainz’s first run was on the softs and could not be compared.
Mercedes were in as poor shape on the race run as on one lap, Russell lagging about a second behind Verstappen on average.
Leclerc needs to win on Sunday after losing major ground in the championship by crashing in France last weekend.
He trails Verstappen by 63 points with 10 races remaining.
McLaren were running a tweaked diffuser design, but the two most intriguing upgrades were at Aston Martin and Haas.
Aston Martin have introduced a design that reintroduces a form of end-plate. The 2022 regulations were written in a way that intended to prevent these parts of the rear wing being used, replacing them with a curved transition from the sides of the wing to the downforce-creating elements.
This was part of a package of changes to reduce turbulence and make it easier for cars to follow each other.
The other notable upgrade was on the Haas, which features an extensive package of changes and has been dubbed the ‘white Ferrari’ for its similarity to the car that has been the qualifying king this season.
