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Hungarian GP: Williams drivers struggle for pace in FP1


By Andrew Hooper
July 25 2014

The opening Friday practice session for the 2014 Hungarain GP would see both Williams Martini drivers struggle to find pace on the twisty Hungaroring. Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas would finish in 10th and 15th in a session that saw not only the Williams driver struggle but also many other teams as they cvame to terms with the track. It was expected that the times would improve over the weekend.

 
 Hungarian GP Friday 1st Practice
 
Massa
 

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.

 
Bottas
 
Pos Driver           	Team		       Time      Laps
 1. Lewis Hamilton      Mercedes               1m25.814s 27
 2. Nico Rosberg        Mercedes               1m25.997s 31
 3. Kimi Raikkonen      Ferrari                1m26.421s 29
 4. Fernando Alonso     Ferrari                1m26.872s 23
 5. Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull-Renault       1m27.220s 28
 6. Kevin Magnussen     McLaren-Mercedes       1m27.357s 28
 7. Jean-Eric Vergne    Toro Rosso-Renault     1m27.683s 30
 8. Daniel Ricciardo    Red Bull-Renault       1m27.782s 16
 9. Jenson Button       McLaren-Mercedes       1m27.804s 27
10. Felipe Massa        Williams-Mercedes      1m27.960s 24
11. Esteban Gutierrez   Sauber-Ferrari         1m27.967s 25
12. Nico Hulkenberg     Force India-Mercedes   1m28.101s 28
13. Daniil Kvyat        Toro Rosso-Renault     1m28.208s 32
14. Pastor Maldonado    Lotus-Renault          1m28.266s 28
15. Valtteri Bottas     Williams-Mercedes      1m28.330s 21
16. Sergio Perez        Force India-Mercedes   1m28.376s 24
17. Romain Grosjean     Lotus-Renault          1m28.593s 24
18. Adrian Sutil        Sauber-Ferrari         1m29.025s 23
19. Kamui Kobayashi     Caterham-Renault       1m30.363s 30
20. Marcus Ericsson     Caterham-Renault       1m30.892s 24
21. Max Chilton         Marussia-Ferrari       1m31.004s 5
22. Jules Bianchi       Marussia-Ferrari       1m31.248s 20
Massa
 

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Hungarian GP: Williams drivers struggle for pace in FP1
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