Hungarian GP: Hamilton tops FP1 as Bottas hits trouble

Hamilton headed a three-team fight at the top of the times in the Hungaroring's first 90-minute session, besting the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari.

The trio was covered by 0.166s of a second around the 2.7-mile circuit as Pierre Gasly completed the top four.

Charles Leclerc was out of position in the second Ferrari in sixth and that, combined with Bottas's trouble, allowed Kevin Magnussen to kick-start Haas's weekend with the fifth-fastest time.

The session began with a high risk of rain and a few drops fell in the first sector almost as soon as running started.

That did not translate into a downpour though and most teams were able to continue with their early installations uninterrupted.

However, Mercedes committed to changing Bottas's engine after two exploratory laps, which mean he sat out the rest of the session.

The team reported a problem with Bottas's original engine that it could not trace, so switched to another Friday engine already in the pool to give itself more time to analyse the issue.

Vettel headed the chase of Hamilton for much of the session, 0.166s behind, before Verstappen managed to improve his own time by a tenth to edge ahead of the Ferrari by just 0.001s.

Verstappen escaped two spins in the session without harm: he lost the rear of his Red Bull exiting the final corner early on, then towards the end found himself facing the wrong way on the run-off for the 90-degree right hander at the start of the final sector.

Leclerc was well adrift of the leading times after a scruffy lap on soft tyres left him 1.1s off the pace, and though he made a modest improvement before the session's ended he could not climb above Magnussen and ended up 0.955s off the pace.

Nico Hulkenberg led Renault's charge in seventh, 0.48s slower than midfielder leader Haas but ahead of the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz.

Kimi Raikkonen completed the top 10 for Alfa Romeo.

Though teammate Magnussen was fifth, equipped with Haas's latest upgrade introduced in Germany last week, Romain Grosjean struggled in the second Haas and finished outside the top 10.

Grosjean is running the aero spec Haas started the season with as the team bids to get a better understanding of its race-pace problems.

However, Grosjean reported he had "everything: understeer, oversteer, it's like Monza wings" during the session, and wound up 12th-fastest.

At the tail end of the field, George Russell gave Williams early hope of fighting at the back of the midfield by lapping 2.4s off Hamilton's best and outpacing the Racing Point of Lance Stroll.

Early in the session, Stroll had a spin onto the grass exiting the chicane in the middle of the lap, but like Verstappen avoided any damage.

Cla	Driver		Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Lewis Hamilton		Mercedes	41	1'17.233
2	Max Verstappen		Red Bull	28	1'17.398	0.165
3	Sebastian Vettel		Ferrari	25	1'17.399	0.166
4	Pierre Gasly		Red Bull	25	1'17.682	0.449
5	Kevin Magnussen		Haas	31	1'17.942	0.709
6	Charles Leclerc		Ferrari	29	1'18.188	0.955
7	Nico Hulkenberg		Renault	31	1'18.417	1.184
8	Lando Norris		McLaren	34	1'18.531	1.298
9	Carlos Sainz Jr.		McLaren	23	1'18.702	1.469
10	Kimi Raikkonen		Alfa Romeo	32	1'18.787	1.554
11	Daniel Ricciardo		Renault	30	1'18.894	1.661
12	Romain Grosjean		Haas	32	1'18.973	1.740
13	Daniil Kvyat		Toro Rosso	33	1'18.982	1.749
14	Alex Albon		Toro Rosso	28	1'19.223	1.990
15	Sergio Perez		Racing Point	20	1'19.325	2.092
16	Antonio Giovinazzi		Alfa Romeo	24	1'19.488	2.255
17	George Russell		Williams	33	1'19.649	2.416
18	Lance Stroll		Racing Point	34	1'19.722	2.489
19	Robert Kubica		Williams	30	1'20.322	3.089
20	Valtteri Bottas		Mercedes	2
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