Leclerc and team-mate Lewis Hamilton set the pace during Friday practice at the Hungaroring, giving Ferrari an encouraging start to the weekend despite difficult track conditions and complaints from drivers about balance and grip.
Leclerc topped first practice ahead of Max Verstappen and Hamilton before reporting that “something broke” on the Ferrari towards the end of the session. Leclerc’s car was wheeled back to the garage, but the issue was repaired in time for second practice.
Hamilton then led the afternoon session, with Leclerc second and 0.148 seconds behind. Verstappen and Lando Norris were both around half a second adrift, although Ferrari remained cautious about reading too much into Friday’s times. “It was a relatively strong day. From the beginning I felt quite good with the car, and performance seemed to be good straightaway so that’s a good thing,” Leclerc said.
Leclerc said Ferrari’s strong Friday does not guarantee an advantage when qualifying begins. “The weekend is still long. From Friday to Saturday, we see teams making a jump in performance. Normally we are on the back foot on the Friday so it’s a good thing that we had a good Friday, but we still need to stay on it and work hard in order to get better for tomorrow,” Leclerc said.
Leclerc expects the field to close up during qualifying and said Ferrari must execute cleanly to remain in contention for pole position.
“It’s going to be tight tomorrow as always. I don’t expect us to have the gap that we’ve had today, so we’ll have to do everything perfect. If the feeling is there, I’m sure we’ll do a good job in Q3,” Leclerc said.
Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur also warned against assuming Friday’s advantage would continue. “It was a bit more messy today in the afternoon in FP2 with traffic, the red flag and so on,” Vasseur said.
Vasseur said Saturday would provide a clearer picture once teams run in more representative conditions. “So far so good but it’s not on Friday that you’re doing pole, and even less that you win the race. It’s good to start the weekend like this but let’s see tomorrow. It will be another story,” Vasseur said.
–F1/ChannelAfrica–
