“It was not an easy day on track” – Max Verstappen

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.

Pérez is hoping that he can find more time on Saturday, after getting caught behind traffic on his fastest laps on Friday. Nevertheless he will need to up his game on Saturday to support the team in their fight against Mercedes.

“The car felt good over the longer and shorter runs today. I think there’s definitely time to be found, I was caught in some traffic during both sessions so I think there is still plenty to play for in qualifying tomorrow.

“With the weather conditions predicted to change over the weekend, there is a bit of an unknown, it may benefit some more than others so we will have to wait and see what happens. We’ve made good steps and we have a good idea about what we need to do before qualifying to make improvements, so I am optimistic for the rest of the weekend.”

Credit: Bryn Lennon/ Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool