Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton headed a Mercedes in the opening practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, outpacing team-mate Valtteri BOttas by just under a tenth of a second as Racing Point again looked competitive, with Sergio Pérez and Lance Stroll claiming third and fourth place respectively. 

The closest rival to the Mercedes-powered quartet was Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo who finished over 1.1 seconds off Hamilton’s pace. The Australian finished ahead of the Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was eighth, almost 1.5 seconds behind the top Mercedes. 

Verstappen set the initial pace on hard tyres but the Mercedes drivers soon emerged on soft compound Pirelli rubber and immediately took the top two spots, which they then held for the remainder of the session. 

There was a brief lull as the teams made changes and handed back their P140 tyres and then the Mercedes split its drivers Hamilton switching to hard tyres and Bottas taking on mediums. 

Bottas quickly stole P1 with a lap of 1:16.089s but the position was reclaimed soon after by Hamilton who moved back of the top of the order with a time of 1:16.003 on the white-banded compound. 

Perez ended the session 0.527s behind Hamilton, with the second Racing Point of Lance Stroll a further 0.437s back in fourth place. With Ricciardo fifth ahead of the Ferraris and Verstappen, ninth place in the session went to McLaren’s Lando Norris and Esteban Ocon rounded out the top 10 for Renault.

Eleventh place was taken by Carlos Sainz in the second McLaren, with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen in 12thplace. That left P13 to Alex Albon in the second Red Bull, 1.724s adrift of Hamilton.

It was a largely trouble-free session, though, Pierre Gasly took no part as AlphaTauri due to investigation of date that showed a potential engine problem.

2020 FIA Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix – Free Practice 1 
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:16.003 37 207.512
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:16.089 0.086 37 207.278
3 Sergio Pérez Racing Point/Mercedes 1:16.530 0.527 20 206.083
4 Lance Stroll Racing Point/Mercedes 1:16.967 0.964 35 204.913
5 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 1:17.200 1.197 28 204.295
6 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:17.238 1.235 26 204.194
7 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:17.404 1.401 29 203.756
8 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1:17.435 1.432 28 203.675
9 Lando Norris McLaren/Renault 1:17.523 1.520 26 203.444
10 Esteban Ocon Renault 1:17.615 1.612 35 203.202
11 Carlos Sainz McLaren/Renault 1:17.675 1.672 32 203.046
12 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1:17.713 1.710 35 202.946
13 Alexander Albon Red Bull/Honda 1:17.727 1.724 28 202.910
14 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1:17.890 1.887 35 202.485
15 Nicholas Latifi Williams/Mercedes 1:17.969 1.966 31 202.280
16 Daniil Kvyat AlphaTauri/Honda 1:18.292 2.289 35 201.445
17 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:18.425 2.422 30 201.104
18 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1:18.574 2.571 29 200.722
19 Robert Kubica Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:19.150 3.147 26 199.262
20 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri/Honda