Leclerc leads Norris in second Hungarian GP practice

Leclerc was third-quickest in FP1 behind Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz and title rival Max Verstappen but leapt to the top of the FP2 leaderboard with an 1m18.445s during the soft tyre runs. 

The Monegasque ended up only 0.217s clear of Lando Norris, who briefly went quickest for McLaren before seeing his time usurped by Leclerc. 

FP1 pacesetter Sainz slipped to third in second practice, 0.231s down on his Ferrari teammate’s benchmark, while Verstappen, who leads the championship by 63 points from Leclerc, ended up fourth and 0.283s adrift. 

Daniel Ricciardo made it two McLarens inside the top five, ahead of Alpine’s birthday boy Fernando Alonso, and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, who announced his retirement from F1 at the end of the season on Thursday. 

George Russell was the fastest Mercedes driver in eighth, but the Silver Arrows ended up well off the pace on both the medium and soft tyre runs. 

Russell was 0.910s down on Leclerc, while his teammate Lewis Hamilton was only 11th, some 1.1s off the pace. Both Russell and Hamilton suffered lock ups in their W13s, which looked laboured and difficult to drive around the Hungaroring’s tight and twisty layout. 

Hamilton reported that his car felt “unstable” after running wide at Turn 4 during the closing stages of the session, while Russell’s W13 was suffering with an overheating engine that forced him to lift and coast to manage his power unit temperatures. 

Completing the top-10 order in FP2 were Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas, both of whom finished the best part of a second down. 

At the bottom of the timesheet was Alex Albon, who had a strange-looking spin in his Williams as he hit the brakes heading into Turn 1. The Thai racer was able to get pointing back in the right direction before limping back to the pits. 

FP2 could be the last dry running of the weekend until Sunday, with thunderstorms forecast to hit the circuit on Saturday and potentially lead to wet conditions for final practice and qualifying.