Hungarian GP | Mercedes expects Red Bull “to be strong tomorrow”
The Silver Arrows show to be very fast on this track as well, but Hamilton stated that with the rain the car seems to have grip probems. Bottas for his part said that they need to work because tha rain will be present all the weekend
In this Friday of free practices, Mercedes showed that also here in Hungary in dry conditions the Silver Arrows will be the cars to beat. In the first session indeed Hamilton and Bottas signed the two fastest laps, with the six time world champion faster than the teammate. During the afternoon, however, that saw the second free practice session to be run under heavy rain, the two Mercedes have shown some more difficulties.
“We got everything done that we needed to in the first session”, Lewis Hamilton said at the end of the day. “The car felt good out there in FP1 although there was still some work to do, so we made some changes for the second session - then it rained, so we've still got learning to do tomorrow. The wet conditions in FP2 didn't really leave us with a lot to do, so we just completed an installation lap on the Intermediate tyres”.
“This is such a great track to drive in the dry, but it's very tricky in the wet and it felt quite low grip out there today. Looking ahead to Qualifying tomorrow, I think it is going to be a lot closer as it's not such a power-dependent circuit”.
“I'm hoping for a tighter pack, it'd be great to see the Renaults doing well, the McLarens are doing a fantastic job, as are the Racing Points, it's really exciting to see. We also expect Red Bull to be strong, so I anticipate a tough battle with them”.
Similar expectations for Valtteri Bottas as well, who stressed that the rain could go on for all the weekend.
“The car didn't feel too bad in the dry today in FP1”, Bottas told. “It seemed like we were in a good place balance-wise, although I was struggling with a bit of understeer but that can be fixed, and I think it wasn't a bad start”.
“Obviously, it would have been nice to get some more practice laps in during the afternoon, fine-tuning the balance more, but the conditions were the same for everyone. The grip level was pretty low in FP2 in the wet”.
“I got to get a feel for the balance in those conditions and I tried both the Inter and Wet tyres. They both felt pretty similar. It looks like we'll see more rain this weekend so I'm sure we can keep working on the car and doing a better job, before qualifying and the race”.
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