F1 Hungarian GP: Lewis Hamilton tops FP2 as Franco…

Lewis Hamilton ended Hungary's second Formula 1 practice session on top, pipping Ferrari stablemate Charles Leclerc at a slippery Hungaroring circuit.

George Russell reported a "dreadful" rear balance, Kimi Antonelli reported rear locking, Leclerc locked up the front in Turn 1, and Pierre Gasly was convinced something was wrong with his car, such was its recalcitrant behaviour, before Alpine team-mate Franco Colapinto found the barriers. It's just a small snapshot of F1's drivers being all at sea on Budapest's twisty Hungaroring in Friday practice.

Between significantly cooler track conditions and heavier gusts of winds, finding the right car balance on the bumpy and low-grip circuit proved a huge undertaking, with parts of the 4.381km layout also clad in brand-new tarmac.

Ferrari initially appeared to cope best with the change in conditions compared to FP1, with Hamilton's 1m19.648s effort leading the early running on mediums, narrowly ahead of Leclerc while Red Bull's Max Verstappen followed seven tenths in arrears.

While Hamilton nibbled at his own benchmark with a 1m19.585s lap, McLaren's Lando Norris went purple before having to let it go in the final corner, narrowly avoiding a spin as he nursed his car back onto the main straight.

It took until around the halfway point for teams to start deploying the soft C5 tyres, with world champion Norris vaulting to the top of the order with a 1m29.228s on Pirelli's red-walled rubber. That was two tenths quicker than Verstappen managed on his subsequent tour, both struggling to find proportionate gains compared to Hamilton's time on mediums.

Mercedes struggled in Hungary (Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images)

Mercedes had a hard time matching its rivals, with Russell initially four tenths off in fourth while Antonelli caught a red flag on his hot lap after 32 minutes. That stoppage was caused by Alpine's Colapinto, who tagged the barriers at the final corner after losing the rear of his car on entry.

As the session went green again, Antonelli's lap came undone again with a gnarly slide through the Turn 6 chicane, his rear axle issue clearly not fixed just yet.

In the final 20 minutes, Ferrari did get a few cleaner laps in with Leclerc's 1m18.877s just 0.037s faster than Hamilton's offering, before the seven-time world champion retaliated with a 1m18.729s lap to top the session. Leclerc was not able to show his hand after being blocked by Russell on his final attempt

Norris' first soft-tyre lap held up for third on the day, narrowly followed by Verstappen, Russell and Isack Hadjar. Racing Bulls continued its promising streak of form with Liam Lawson grabbing seventh ahead of Piastri. Nico Hulkenberg and Arvid Lindblad rounded out the top 10. Championship leader Antonelli only managed 13th after having to abort his qualifying simulation.

Aston Martin's heavily upgraded car was 19th with Fernando Alonso, three seconds behind the leaders and roughly on par with Cadillac, although the Silverstone team likely focused on further dialling its B-spec car rather than chasing ultimate performance. But the squad did suffer a setback when Lance Stroll's rear suspension failed in FP1, with the Canadian missing all of FP2 as a result.