REPORT: 91 laps completed on Friday at the Hungaroring

The Hungarian Grand Prix weekend is underway and Williams Racing have had an encouraging start to proceedings at the Hungaroring.

In scorching temperatures, where the track surface reached as high as 58.8°c/137°f, we set about going through a busy programme across both FP1 and FP2.

Aside from a short Virtual Safety Car period, the first hour of practice was largely interrupted.

Alex recorded our best time, 1:19.784, to put him P14 whilst Logan was just under a tenth behind his teammate, his 1:19.885 placing him P16.

Shortly after we had wrapped our first runs in FP2, the red flag was flown after Charles Leclerc found the barrier in a high-speed incident at the exit of T4.

There was a delay in proceedings to allow for barrier repairs before the track was clear, allowing everyone to start their Qualifying simulations.

It was tight between our duo, with Alex sitting in P9 at the chequered flag following a 1:18.514, and Logan in P12 with his best of a 1:18.611.

All things considered, it’s a solid start to the weekend with 91 laps completed across both cars, something Sven Smeets, Sporting Director, acknowledged post-FP2.

“Today was all about testing some of our learnings from Barcelona,” Sven shared. “We had a busy programme and made some improvements from FP1 to FP2 and are in a better place now than where we were a few weeks ago in these hot track conditions.

“There is still a lot of data to go through tonight, but our race pace looks to have improved.

“It will be very hot on Sunday, so good tyre management will be key to fighting for points.”

Alex continued our Friday reaction by adding: “I’m happy with the sessions today; there’s definitely work to do as we’ve experimented a lot between FP1 and FP2, so we need to go through the data and work out which bits worked and eliminate those that didn’t.

“There’s more potential in the car but I’ll be surprised if we stay where we are but it’s a positive start.

“Our long pace is looking good and there is still more for us to learn from the data, so we’ll go away and do our homework tonight.”

Logan wrapped up our Friday by commenting: “I think most importantly we made a good step forward between FP1 and FP2.

“I wasn’t super happy with where we were in FP1, but the afternoon session felt a lot better.

“We just need to keep chipping away, doing our homework and see what we can do better. “The big player is the track temperature. Tomorrow looks like it’s going to be a bit more overcast than today, so that may play in our favour.

“I’m sure Sunday will be tough on the tyres, but we’ll put ourselves in the best position we can.

“Considering the track, I thought we would be in a worse position than we are, so I’m looking forward to having a positive day tomorrow.”