BUDAPEST, Hungary — Valtteri Bottas turned the fastest lap during Friday’s second practice session for the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring.
Bottas edged his Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, by a mere .027 seconds on the historic road course after clocking a lap of one minute and 17.012 seconds.
“It felt like being in a Finnish sauna today, especially when you stop mid-runs — it’s way more than 60 degrees (Celsius) in the cockpit,” Bottas said. “It makes it tricky with the tires overheating but honestly, it didn’t feel too bad – a promising start. Recently we’ve been making improvements and I don’t think we’re in too bad a place but it’s only practice, you never know what teams are holding back. In FP1 we had work to do with the balance but we made changes quickly and were in better shape for FP2, and no doubt there’s still more to come. We’ll be in on the fight for pole tomorrow and that’s hugely motivating.”
Hamilton also referred to the heat.
“It was roasting today, I’ve probably lost 3kg out there and the tires were melting,” Hamilton said. “To see Valtteri and I at the top of the timesheets this afternoon is pleasing, it’s great for the team and we’ll only improve on that.”
Max Verstappen was third — nearly three-tenths of a second behind Bottas —after leading the initial practice session for Red Bull.
“In general, it was not an easy day on track today, we had a few adjustments that we were working on from FP1 and FP2 that we need to look into, seeing what works and what doesn’t,” Verstappen said. “There are a lot of things to analyse this evening but there’s nothing too big to overcome so I’m not worried. The track was very hot today, but it looks like there’s a bit of rain coming so that should make things interesting and I’m looking forward to it.”
Esteban Ocon was fourth for Alpine Renault and Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez rounded out the top five.