F1 Hungarian GP: Lando Norris leads McLaren 1-2 in FP1

Lando Norris drew first blood at the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, headlining Formula 1’s opening free practice session by a scant 0.019s over championship leader Oscar Piastri.

Norris set a 1m16.052s with his first lap on the soft tyres, having already set a somewhat competitive time on the medium-compound Pirellis during the opening half of the session.

Those early runs were logged on the hard and medium tyres, with rapid improvement emerging in the opening 20 minutes of the session.

Among those, Norris set a 1m16.837s, having found continual progress in the opening laps to become the first driver in the session to dip below the 1m17s bracket.

Charles Leclerc then kicked off the soft-tyre runs and posted a 1m16.791s to surpass Norris’ lap, although the McLaren driver’s time on the C4s remained too tough for Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen to beat on their first soft times.

Norris then shattered that, finding almost half a second over Leclerc in the middle sector to set a 1m16.052s. Piastri followed his team-mate’s time and set a better first sector, but lost time to Norris over the remainder of the lap and crossed the line 0.142s behind.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

The championship leader then took another crack at Norris’ benchmark, finding more pace in the middle sector to get within 0.019s of the Briton on the same set of tyres.

Leclerc improved to get within 0.217s, but a four-tenth gulf followed him and fourth-placed Isack Hadjar as the Frenchman demonstrated strong early pace in his Racing Bulls machinery. Hadjar split the Ferraris, as Hamilton ended the session fifth.

Ollie Bearman was sixth in the timings, a mere 0.002s clear of Andrea Kimi Antonelli – who went faster than George Russell by half a tenth. Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll completed the top 10.

Fernando Alonso missed the session due to a back injury and thus Felipe Drugovich stood in for the veteran Spaniard, he placed 16th and ahead of Yuki Tsunoda – who complained of sliding throughout the lap – and Franco Colapinto.

Sauber stand-in Paul Aron, driving in place of Nico Hulkenberg in this session, came to a halt at Turn 13 after facing a “systems critical alarm” on his steering wheel. The race director chose to throw a virtual safety car to ensure the Estonian’s car could be collected from the run-off.

The Saubers propped up the bottom of the times, as Gabriel Bortoleto’s running appeared to be curtailed beyond the soft-tyre runs.