Hamilton tops first practice as Perez crashes

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Lewis Hamilton topped the first practice session at Hungary in typically hot conditions. Most attention however went to Sergio Perez who had a rolling crash as a rear suspension element failed while accelerating out of a corner.

The World Champion recorded a 1:25.141 and thereby proved little more than a tenth quicker than his teammate Nico Rosberg. The latter did several quick runs but failed to topple his Hamilton.

Still, all that happened after Perez' crash. The Mexican had run very wide through the outside of the exit of turn 11, ending up with a right rear suspension failure that pulled his car right, into the barriers. It subsequently flipped over and came to a stop on the tarmac. Perez however was able to extract himself out of the car before marshalls turned the car back onto its four wheels to be removed from the track.

Kimi Raikkonen later on also had a mechanical problem on his Ferrari. As the Finn tried to improve on his lap, his Ferrari’s front wing collapsed as he ran wide over the saw-tooth kerb exiting Turn 12. As he limped back to the pits without the wing and with a flat front left tyre, the session was red flagged again. The session still got restarted, but in the little time that was left, nobody else managed to improve.

Lotus' test driver Jolyon Palmer meanwhile didn't get much running done, coming out on track just 4 times but a telemetry-related issue prevented him from setting a timed lap. Team mate Pastor Maldonado similarly only completed a limited programme, ending up 17th fastest.

Results

..
Pos.No.DriverTeamTimeGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:25.141-18
26Nico RosbergMercedes1:25.250+0.109s22
37Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:25.812+0.671s23
43Daniel RicciardoRed Bull1:26.053+0.912s20
526Daniil KvyatRed Bull1:26.070+0.929s17
65Sebastian VettelFerrari1:26.395+1.254s14
755Carlos SainzToro Rosso1:26.727+1.586s25
811Sergio PerezForce India1:26.776+1.635s14
977Valtteri BottasWilliams1:26.825+1.684s19
1033Max VerstappenToro Rosso1:26.934+1.793s27
1114Fernando AlonsoMclaren1:27.272+2.131s16
1222Jenson ButtonMclaren1:27.308+2.167s17
1327Nico HulkenbergForce India1:27.317+2.176s11
1419Felipe MassaWilliams1:27.381+2.240s19
1512Felipe NasrSauber1:27.409+2.268s24
169Marcus EricssonSauber1:27.732+2.591s23
1713Pastor MaldonadoLotus1:28.568+3.427s9
1828Will StevensMarussia1:29.693+4.552s17
1942Fabio LeimerMarussia1:30.631+5.490s18
2030Jolyon PalmerLotus--4