The opening
Friday practice session for the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix would see regular
drivers Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa present for the Williams Martini
Team. Pirelli had brought their soft and medium tyres for this weekend.
Felipe was forced to run with the same floor that was slightly damaged in
his accident in Germany. With the start of the session both Williams drivers
would complete their installation laps but they would be one of the later
ones to take to the track. Again Pirelli was supply an extra set of the
prime tyre and with thirty minutes of the
session complete the track would empty as the drivers returned to their pits
to swap these tyres.
For the Williams team Valtteri was leading Felipe with the pair in eleventh
and twelfth positions. Valtteri's time was a 1m:29.089 while Felipe had set
a 1m:29.102 but running on the medium tyre. Quickest at this time was
Rosberg with a 1m:27.320 which would see both Williams drivers 1.7 seconds
off the pace. The only incident in the first half hour was when Chilton came
into the pits his engine let out a plume of smoke followed by flames which
were put out by the marshals. Chilton had yet to set a time. In sec0nd was
Raikkonen followed by Hamilton, Button, Ricciardo, Alonso, Vergne, Vettel, Magnussen, and Maldonado in tenth. Rosberg would be
the first to return to the track and would improve with a 1m:26.114. He
would continue to find time with a 1m:25.997 as the track continued to
improved. Drivers had reported very low grip on their first runs as Rosberg
pitted with Hamilton, Raikkonen, and Kobayashi coming back out.
Forty five minutes remaining and more drivers started to return to the
track, including both Lotus cars, Hulkenberg, and Ericsson. Vettel and
Vergne would be next out as Hamilton improved to be second with a 1m:26.239.
Raikkonen would go fastest in sector one as Kvyat also came out. Raikkonen
would improve his time with a 1m:26.421 but remained third. Hamilton would
also improve with a 1m:25.814 to go quickest by 0.183 seconds.
Ricciardo and Magnussen would take to the track with forty minutes remaining. Hamilton would pit while we still had yet to
see either Williams driver come back out. Vettel would improve to be fourth
with a 1m:27.457 followed by Magnussen and Button in sixth. Ricciardo was
now seventh followed by Alonso and Vergne. Kvyat was now eleventh pushing
Valtteri and Felipe to thirteenth and fourteenth.
Ricciardo was now fifth with a time of 1m:27.782 seeing Magnussen now sixth.
The first Williams drivers to return was Valtteri with Perez also coming
out. Both Williams drivers were now over three seconds off the pace of the
Mercedes. Alonso was now fourth with a 1m:26.872. Felipe was now back out
for his next run as Valtteri set a 1m:28.660 to reduce the gap to the
leaders to 2.7 seconds, still a huge gap. Rosberg was back out as the likes
of Alonso, Vettel, Vergne, Ricciardo, and Kvyat all had pitted. Valtteri had
improved with a 1m:28.330 but Felipe went slightly quicker with a 1m:28.307
to be just 0.023 ahead of his team-mate. Valtteri would pit
as Alonso came back out after a short stop. Felipe would again improve this
time by a considerable margin moving up to tent with a time of 1m:27.960 to
be 0.3 ahead of Valtteri.
Hamilton would join Rosberg out on the track with just over twenty minutes
remaining. With twenty minutes remaining the order was Hamilton from
Rosberg, Raikkonen, Alonso, Vettel, Magnussen, Vergne, Ricciardo, Button,
and Felipe tenth. Felipe would complete his second run and would pit as
Vergne and Vettel left the pit lane, along with Kvyat, Maldonado, and
Kobayashi. Raikkonen was also back out with fourteen minutes left in the
session. Felipe and Valtteri were currently tenth and thirteenth but still someway of the pace of the front runners. Both
McLaren's had also come out along with Vettel. Valtteri would also take to
the track with just over ten minutes remaining, followed by Felipe. Everyone
was still on the medium tyre with the soft tyres not expected to come out
until the second session. Chilton would finally get out on the track with
just a few minutes remaining having had a gearbox change.
Both Mercedes cars would pit with Hamilton still fastest as the session drew
to a close. Felipe was still tenth but Valtteri had dropped to fourteenth
with Maldonado in front of him. Raikkonen was still third followed by
Alonso, Vettel, Magnussen, Vergne, Ricciardo, Button and Felipe was as the
session ended. Chilton would set a 1m:31.004 to be quicker than team-mate
Bianchi. With the end of the session Valtteri would op to be fifteenth
possibly one of his worst results for sometime. But at least Felipe was in the top ten but still well off the pace. |