FP2: Bottas and Hamilton dominate afternoon session in the heat of the Hungaroring

F1 Grand Prix, GP Hungary, Hungaroring

Mercedes shocked Red Bull with its eye-catching speed in the second session for the Hungarian Grand Prix with Valtteri Bottas edging his team mate Lewis Hamilton.

Things have changed for the atfernoon session for the Hungarian round of the 2021 F1 season with both Red Bull and Ferrari slipping down the order compared to their showing in the morning.

The ambient temperatures were at 34 Celsius while track temperatures hit record values at the Hungaroring with over 60 Celsius degrees. The scorching temperatures have probably played a key part in the swing in form as the battle between Mercedes and Red Bull took a different shape compared to what was expected before the weekend.

Most of the drivers used Pirelli's Medium compound for their first run before switching to the softs for the qualifying runs. Mercedes was significantly quicker than Red Bull on the C2 with their advantage originating from the first sector.

Even when the field switched to the C4 compound, the picture remained unchanged with Mercedes continuing to dominate the session. Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time of the opening day with a 1m17.012 followed by his team mate Lewis Hamilton. The defending champion was on a really fast lap which could have seen him jump to the top of the table, but Hamilton ran into traffic which deprived him of setting the fastest time of Friday.

Verstappen topped the opening session, but he was constantly losing too much time in the first sector to match Mercedes' pace in the afternoon practice. His team mate Sergio Perez looked more in control in his RB16B than in the morning, finishing P5.

Alpine performed strongly in FP2 after their double point-finish at the British Grand Prix. Esteban Ocon took 4th while his team mate Fernando Alonso ended up 7th fastest. The French team's big rival in the Constructors' Championship, the Aston Martin outfit completed a successful opening day at the Hungaroring despite being among the first teams to carry out qualifying simulations. Sebastian Vettel set the 8th quickest time with Lance Stroll ending up tenth fastest.

Ferrari had been predicted to be strong at the Hungaroring track, but the Italian could not live up to the expectations on Friday. Charles Leclerc ended up only 11th fastest, edging his team mate Carlos Sainz who registered a 1m18.441 to finish down in P12.

Williams' British racer George Russell took 15th, followed by his mate Nicholas Latifi some two-tenths off. After crashing out at Turn 4 in the opening practice, Yuki Tsunoda had only one single flying lap in the dying stages of the session which was only enough for P17. Haas’ Mick Schumacher was 18th, ahead of the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi in 19th as Nikita Mazepin took 20th in the second Haas.