Charles Leclerc Quickest in FP1 in Hungary Ahead of Verstappen

Ferrari have been looking increasingly strong, and this weekend seems to be no different, as Charles Leclerc shot to the top of the timesheets. Max Verstappen was the driver to get in between Leclerc and his teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was in third.

The Italian team might be looking quick, but their session wasn’t all that cookie-cutter, as Charles Leclerc set the fastest time before suffering a mechanical issue with just seven minutes left on the clock. The Monegasque was forced to come to stop but managed to make it to the pit lane before doing so, so no red flags were deployed. However, that didn’t mean the flags weren’t waved at all during the session, as Lance Stroll triggered them just under 15 minutes before. The Aston Martin driver took a spin into the gravel after the rear suspension failed in the car. It’s a tough pill for the team to swallow, especially on the weekend where they’re bringing buttloads of upgrades. They’ll be hoping to fine-tune anymore issues in time for qualifying tomorrow, and there’s still a couple more practice sessions to do so.

Another thing to note, in case you get a bit confused looking at the results, is that we had five rookie drivers participating in this FP1. Some names to take note of are Fred Vesti in Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes and Leonardo Fornaroli taking place of Oscar Piastri in the McLaren.

By the time everything settled down and the hour-long practice ended, it was still Charles Leclerc that was sitting at the top, while Max Verstappen was over 4 tenths off the Ferrari driver’s time, and Lewis Hamilton was even further off behind in third. Isack Hadjar continues to show pace in the Red Bull as he went fourth quickest, while George Russell slotted into P5. Gabriel Bortoleto was quick once again, going sixth fastest after finishing in the points last weekend in Belgium. Fred Vesti went to P7 in the Mercedes, while Hulkenberg and the Racing Bulls duo Lindblad and Lawson rounded out the top ten.

Below are the full results of FP1 in Hungary.