It was business as usual at the Hungaroring as the two Mercedes cars of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg topped the timesheets in the first practice session of the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix. A time of 1:25.141 was the benchmark set by the Englishman, with his team-mate finishing 0.109 behind.
Kimi Raikkonen finished the session in third place but suffered a front wing failure which brought out a red flag with five minutes of the session remaining.
The two Red Bull cars of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat finished fourth and fifth respectively ahead of the Ferrari of Sebastien Vettel.
Carlos Sainz finished an impressive seventh place ahead of Sergio Perez who’s session was brought to an early end. The session was red flagged with just under half an hour left when the Force India of Perez suffered what looked like a component malfunction in the right rear suspension as the Mexican ran wide over the kerbs. As a result of the breakage the car was pitched in to a spin, hitting the barrier and sending the car sideways, while the initial impact didn’t seem that fierce the car would flip over when the front right wheel of the car broke and tucked under the monocoque. Thankfully Perez walked away from the incident, despite landing upside down.
Valtteri Bottas put the rumours of moving to Ferrari behind him as he got back to business and finished the session in ninth place, with Max Verstappen rounding out the top ten.
McLaren enjoyed improved pace as they finished the session mid-table as they look to make something of a season that has been disappointing so far. Fernando Alonso finished in eleventh place with team-mate Jenson Button in twelvth place.
Lotus had limited track time having only going out on track in the last 15 minutes, while there has been no official word from the team there has been rumours of financial issues within the team. Talking to BBC Sport during the session Jolyon Palmer said “We had a small issue with tyres this morning but it is all sorted now, I should be out any second.”
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