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Lorenzo Colombo won the first race of the weekend as the FIA Formula 3 Championship takes on the Hungaroring for its fourth round of seven this season, making it eight winners from the first ten races of the year.

Jonny Edgar and Colombo started on the front row, while Friday’s pole man Arthur Leclerc served a five-place grid penalty for his collision with Clement Novalak in Spielberg last time out and started 15th.

Frederik Vesti also served a three-place penalty for driving too slowly in Qualifying, which dropped him to ninth.

Edgar held off Colombo through the first sector despite challenges at Turns 2 and 4, while there were position changes aplenty further down the order, Victor Martins getting past Carlin Buzz Racing‘s Jake Hughes and Johnathan Hoggard overtaking Tijmen van der Helm.

Colombo took the lead around the outside of Turn 1 on Lap 8 but Edgar immediately lost drive, the Carlin man dropping down the order and retiring at the exit of Turn 3.

Jonathan Eddolls, the Chief Race Engineer at Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda, says it was a day of two different halves for the drivers, with Pierre Gasly ending inside the top six in both sessions and Yuki Tsunoda ending in the barriers.

Gasly placed fifth in the morning session at the Hungaroring and sixth in the afternoon as he returned to the kind of pace he was able to show in the races prior to the disappointing British Grand Prix weekend two weeks ago.

Eddolls says the updates brought to the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend appear to be working, and he hopes Gasly can maintain his form into Saturday’s Qualifying session.

“It’s a tale of two halves today for the team,” said Eddolls.  “Pierre’s side of the garage have had a very good Friday, we hit the ground running in FP1 and he showed a very good performance on all of the tyres and particularly on the short-run, where the car seems to be in a good place.

“For sure, the race will be difficult, especially if we have these very high temperatures as it’s very hard on the tyres, so that is probably an area that we should work on for the rest of the weekend.

David Brivio, the Racing Director of the Alpine F1 Team, felt the French marque had two positive free practice sessions at the Hungaroring on Friday, and he hopes they can continue the form into Saturday.

Esteban Ocon ended the afternoon session in fourth place, while team-mate Fernando Alonso placed seventh in both sessions to conclude a positive opening day of the Hungarian Grand Prix for Alpine as they bid to improve on their seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship this weekend.

Alonso was not as happy as Ocon was with the set-up of his A521, but the Racing Director says the team acquired a lot of useful data that will benefit both drivers for the rest of the weekend.

Brivio says both drivers showed good pace on Friday, but he knows the important days of the weekend are still to come as both Ocon and Alonso look to break into the top ten in Qualifying in order to be in a good position for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

“We had two positive sessions, particularly with Esteban who felt comfortable in the car and showed some decent pace on both tyre compounds,” said Brivio.  “Fernando still has a little way to go to improve the car to his exact liking, but we collected a lot of useful data on long runs and different tyres and can improve tomorrow.

Charles Leclerc was happy with how his car felt during Friday’s running at the Hungaroring, with the Monegasque racer pleased to get through his planned programme.

The Scuderia Ferrari driver ended seventh fastest in the morning session and eleventh in the afternoon, and although he missed out on the top ten in the second session, he was happy with the pace of the SF71 across both short and long runs despite the extreme temperatures in Hungary.

Leclerc knows Qualifying on Saturday will be extremely important, so they will be looking to maximise their potential heading into the session.

“It was a good day,” Leclerc said.  “We went through our planned programme and I was quite happy with how I felt in the car.

“The conditions changed slightly from FP1 to FP2, but we did a good job in both the qualifying and race simulations. What we need to focus on the most is our qualifying performance. It will be quite tricky to overtake, so we have to be a bit stronger here on Saturday than we have been recently at some of the other circuits.

Fortec Motorsport championship leader James Hedley claimed his first pole position of 2021, and thus breaking the spell that JHR Developments had on pole positions so far this season, with a stunning lap in changeable conditions to further cement his position at the summit of the points table. His main championship challenger Matthew Rees lines up alongside him however, the the JHR rookie setting a second fastest time at the death to keep Hedley within his sights. Thruxton race three winner and JHR team mate Joseph Loake claimed an impressive third place after leading some of the session in the remaining five minutes.

As the cars went out for the beginning of the 20 minute session, it was a mad dash for the best track conditions as the rain began to fall. All drivers were on slick tyres but the teams were at the ready in pit lane with wet tyres as the drizzle intensified.

The first timed laps were coming in with 15 minutes of the session remaining, with yesterday’s pace setter Matias Zagazeta coming to early grips with the ever changing conditions to set a 1:42.476 as the times began to tumble rapidly on the the greasy surface.

Abbi Pulling took her turn to shoot up the order, with a 1:41.641 vaulting the JHR Developments driver up to the top of the timesheet. More and more drivers were beginning to change tyres as the conditions began to deteriorate, as the wet tyres were becoming the favoured choice.

At the halfway mark, it was Aiden Neate that dropped down into the 1:40s to top the times for the Phinsys by Argenti squad. James Hedley was within two tenths of the leader in second place after spending a little more time in the garage at the beginning of the session.

Lando Norris felt it was not too bad a day for the McLaren F1 Team at the Hungaroring on Friday, despite the Briton finishing only ninth in both free practice sessions.

Norris, the only driver to have scored points in every race of 2021 to date, says the hot conditions in Hungary made things tricky, but he believes McLaren are ‘there or thereabouts’ when it comes to performance this weekend with more time to find on Saturday.

The Briton says the team will be looking to gain some more performance overnight heading into final practice and Qualifying as Norris bids to extend his unbroken points scoring run in 2021 to eleven races on Sunday.

“Today wasn’t too bad – obviously very hot which made things a bit tricky,” said Norris.  “It’s not just warm inside the car but the car itself, especially the tyres – the tarmac is hot and that can change a lot of things with the car and how it feels too.

“It doesn’t make things too easy with the temperatures, but we’ll try to make sure we do a better job with that tomorrow and make improvements overnight. But I think we’re there or thereabouts, so we’ll see if we can gain a little bit for tomorrow.”

Sebastian Vettel believed it was a ‘decent’ day for the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team at the Hungaroring on Friday, with the German ending in an encouraging eighth place in the afternoon session.

Vettel began the weekend with thirteenth in the morning session but improved in the afternoon, although he feels there is still some time to unlock ahead of Saturday’s final practice session and the all-important Qualifying session.

The four-time World Champion says Qualifying in the same position on Saturday will be a fantastic result for Aston Martin, but it is important to start the day on the front foot in final practice.

“We had a decent day,” said Vettel.  “If we qualify tomorrow where we finished today, I think that would probably be a good result for us.

“But, of course, we want more – so let’s see what we can find overnight.  My fastest lap this afternoon was OK, but I left a bit of a margin.

Pierre Gasly says it was pleasing that Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda have appeared to put their disappointing Silverstone weekend behind them after finishing inside the top six in both free practice sessions at the Hungaroring on Friday.

The Frenchman failed to score a point in the British Grand Prix two weeks ago after a problematic weekend, but the pace Gasly has shown for much of the season in 2021 appeared to return on Friday in practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Gasly says the Alpine F1 Team appear to have good pace this weekend, so he knows the team will need to extract everything they can from the AT-02 across the rest of the weekend to beat them in Qualifying and the race.

“I’m very pleased with today, particularly after Silverstone where we struggled a bit,” said Gasly.  “It’s good to see that we’ve got the performance back again.

“The car felt good even in these really hot conditions, so we’ll see how we do tomorrow. The Alpine car is looking very fast this weekend so we’ll have to work hard tonight to try and get them in Qualifying.

Esteban Ocon felt it was a positive start to the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend for the Alpine F1 Team, with the Frenchman ending an encouraging fourth fastest in Friday’s second practice session at the Hungaroring.

Ocon felt the A521 felt good over one lap in the hot conditions in Hungary, but the Frenchman is cautious about the potential of the car for the rest of the weekend, particularly with cooler weather expected.

But nevertheless, Ocon was pleased with the way the weekend has begun, and he is eyeing a top ten position in Qualifying on Saturday afternoon regardless of the weather conditions.

“It was a good Friday practice overall,” said Ocon.  “The conditions were very tricky with the heat, which must be a record here. I’ve never seen track temperatures above 60C in my career!

“It’s very challenging to deal with the warm temperatures and having to manage the tyres, brakes and the car is a big exercise. Understanding all of that is key, but it looks like it will be much cooler tomorrow.

The 2021 British F4 Championship was shocked back into life today at Oulton Park after a five week break, with Phinsys by Argenti’s Matias Zagazeta topping both of Friday’s free practice sessions, mastering both damp and drying conditions to lay down an impressive marker for the rest of the grid to chase for the remainder of the weekend.

The first session in the morning was a tale of two affairs, with the Oulton Park circuit continually drying as the session went on. And at the chequered flag it was the Peruvian that set the fastest lap on the drying surface, lapping the island circuit in 1:25.365, a whole two tenths faster than Fortec Motorsport’s Joel Granfors.

A large portion of the 25-minute session was spent under red flags however, with two rookies Thomas Ikin and Eduardo Coseteng having offs at the same Island corner hairpin just a few minutes apart. But when the session resumed it was initially a Carlin lockout at the very summit of the timesheet, with Roman Bilinski, Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Dougie Bolger trading fastest times and promising rookie Kai Askey slotting in fourth place.

It was Abbi Pulling who became the first driver to dip below the 1:30 barrier however, with the JHR Developments racer recently coming off a starring weekend in W Series at Silverstone just two weeks ago. Bilinski briefly returned back to the top of the times before Matias Zagazeta put his Phinsys by Argenti machine at the top where he would be remain until the end of the session.

Pulling eventually finished her session in fourth place behind Marcos Flack, with the Australian showing some great pace in the mixed conditions at a weekend where a good result is definitely needed. Main title contender Matthew Rees rounded out the top five for JHR Developments, once again backing up the pace of the Derbyshire based squad as of late.

Championship leader Max Verstappen ended the opening day of the Hungarian Grand Prix in third place, however in what will be a worry for Red Bull Racing Verstappen was behind both Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team drivers. Sergio Pérez ended the day fifth.

Verstappen ended the opening session on top before track temperatures soared above sixty degrees celsius in the afternoon, the Dutchman struggled with understeer in the Hungarian sun as he fell almost three tenths behind both Mercedes drivers.

The championship leader isn’t too concerned though, especially with rain looking highly likely for qualifying.

“In general, it was not an easy day on track today, we had a few adjustments that we were working on from FP1 and FP2 that we need to look into, seeing what works and what doesn’t. There are a lot of things to analyse this evening but there’s nothing too big to overcome so I’m not worried. The track was very hot today, but it looks like there’s a bit of rain coming so that should make things interesting and I’m looking forward to it.”

“There’s definitely time to be found” – Sergio Pérez

Sergio Pérez had an average opening day, the Mexican was well off the pace of Mercedes duo Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton but was still able to go fifth fastest.

The opening day of the Hungarian Grand Prix was an almost perfect one for the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, with Valtteri Bottas ending the day on top with team-mate Lewis Hamilton a whisker behind in second.

Bottas who is racing for his Mercedes career, had an excellent opening day in the scorching conditions, the Finnish driver was second after the opening session before topping the time sheets in Free Practice Two.

World champion Lewis Hamilton also had a strong opening day, ending Friday only +0.029s behind his team-mate but more importantly nearly three tenths ahead of Max Verstappen.

Mercedes haven’t had too many session lockouts so far this season, so the opening day at the Hungaroring will leave them feeling pretty good. However the joy may not last long with the weather expected to take a dramatic turn heading into qualifying, with heavy rain predicted.

Mercedes Track Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin is encouraged seeing the Silver Arrows at the top of the time sheets but is aware that with rain everything could change.

Valtteri Bottas soared to the top of the timing sheets on the opening day of the Hungarian Grand Prix, the Finnish driver ended the day top of the field in scorching conditions. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton ended the day second at the Hungaroring.

It was an opening day that Bottas would’ve dreamt of, the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver showed brilliant pace throughout the day, as the track temperature broke the sixty degrees celsius mark.

Bottas is extremely happy with the great start to the weekend as he continues to race for his Mercedes future, he will be pushing for pole position on Saturday.

“It felt like being in a Finnish sauna today, especially when you stop mid-runs – it’s way more than 60 degrees in the cockpit! It makes it tricky with the tyres overheating but honestly, it didn’t feel too bad – a promising start. Recently we’ve been making improvements and I don’t think we’re in too bad a place but it’s only Practice, you never know what teams are holding back.

“In FP1 we had work to do with the balance but we made changes quickly and were in better shape for FP2, and no doubt there’s still more to come. We’ll be in on the fight for pole tomorrow and that’s hugely motivating.”

Valtteri Bottas finished on top of the time charts at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring in Hungary in the second free practice session (FP2).

Lewis Hamilton was in second position, just 0.027 seconds behind his team-mate. Max Verstappen was 0.298 seconds behind in third position.

The eleventh race of the 2021 FIA Formula 1 World Championship is taking place in scorchingly hot conditions in Hungary

The sixty-minute long free practice session started under hot conditions with the air temperature at 32 degrees C and the track temperature at 58 degrees C.

The Pirelli tyre choice at this race is the white-striped hard compound tyres (C2), yellow-striped medium compound tyres (C3), and red-striped soft compound tyres (C4).

Arthur Leclerc took pole position for Race 3 in Qualifying at the Hungaroring as the FIA Formula 3 Championship gears up for its fourth round of the season, crossing the halfway point of another thrilling campaign.

Jonny Edgar will be on Race 1 pole on account of qualifying 12th, while Leclerc also takes four Championship points for setting the fastest lap of the session.

Lorenzo Colombo (Campos Racing) was fastest for the first ten minutes of the session, a 1:33.805 putting him just ahead of Jack Doohan (Trident), Dennis Hauger (PREMA Racing) and Matteo Nannini (HWA Racelab).

The Italian looked set to improve on that benchmark, before boxing around the halfway stage of the half-hour session.

Most of the field retreated to the pits, while the Hitech GP trio of Ayumu Iwasa, Roman Stanek and Jak Crawford, yet to show their true pace in the session, went second, sixth and tenth with their first representative times.