F1 Hungarian GP Live Commentary and Updates – FP1 & FP2

After sitting out FP1, Nico Hulkenberg will have a bit of catching up to do in the Haas driven earlier on by Oliver Bearman. But then the German isn't exactly short on experience here. A veteran of 10 previous Hungarian GPs, his best result remains the sixth he scored for Williams in his first season back in 2010.

Good afternoon and welcome back to our Live text coverage from the Hungaroring. We're a little under 10 minutes away from the resumption of F1 running in Budapest as teams build up their banks of data.

We're going to take a pause on the live text commentary at this juncture, but do join us again later on as we bring you all the updates from FP2 as they happen. Until then, cheerio!

Teams now have a little over two hours to pour over data and potential set-up changes before going again for FP2 this afternoon. That session begins at 4pm BST.

Daniel Ricciardo, Fernando Alonso, Alex Albon and Valtteri Bottas occupy positions 12-15, with Logan Sargeant slotting ahead of the Alpine drivers in 16th. Behind Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, Haas pair Kevin Magnussen and Oliver Bearman complete the order. Nico Hulkenberg will return to the cockpit for FP2 later on, as Bearman vacates to focus on F2 duties.

The top 10 is completed by Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll and Lewis Hamilton, with Sergio Perez 11th in the second Red Bull.

Four tenths back from Sainz is George Russell in fourth, ahead of a resurgent Zhou Guanyu in fifth for Sauber and the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

It's a good start to the weekend for Ferrari then, as Carlos Sainz heads the way in opening practice. Charles Leclerc slots into third, with Max Verstappen splitting the two scarlet cars in a Red Bull that is also carrying notable upgrades here.

Nobody is improving their times as we tick down the minutes in the session, with most drivers on softs or mediums. Only Leclerc is currently running on the hard, which he used earlier in the session too.

Curiously the fastest first sector of anybody so far has been set by Stroll in the Williams. Sainz is the quickest man through the remaining two sectors and the lap as a whole. 

We've not talked about him an awful lot today, but Zhou is doing a more than respectable job currently in fifth spot, in ahead of both McLaren drivers. That's the same position he qualified for last year's race, which remains his best F1 grid position.

That's not too shabby at all for Verstappen, given he was running on a set of used tyres. That may be all she wrote in terms of the qualifying simulation runs on softs, as Russell, Hamilton and Piastri emerge from the pits on mediums.

Verstappen had drifted back to 15th as others improved on the rubbered-in track, but now volleys in the second-fastest time to go 0.276s behind Sainz.

Leclerc aborts his latest lap after a messy end to the lap, catching a big wobble mid-corner through Turn 11, then going too deep into Turn 12 and having to run wide around the exit kerb gravel he dipped into earlier. He remains second though for the time being.

Perez has gone tenth on a new set of softs, but is almost a full second down on Sainz's benchmark. What can Verstappen do after a short spell in the garage?

Piastri slots into third, just behind Norris, while Tsunoda moves up into fourth with an improvement of his own using the softs. Leclerc meanwhile is setting purple sectors...

McLaren has switched from the medium to soft, and Norris is the first to show his hand as he laps just 0.074s shy of Russell and splits the two Mercedes cars at the head of the leaderboard.

The two Haas drivers Magnussen and Bearman are currently adrift from the field, 2s off the pace, but have now switched to softs which may provide a better indication of where the team's potential lies this weekend. The rest of the pack is split by 1.3s currently.

Ferrari continues to plug away with the hard tyres, and Sainz has found some bite in them to move into third on a 1m20.094s. But he's immediately pushed back a spot as Piastri assumes the position of Verstappen's closest challenger, slotting in ahead of Russell with a 1m19.838s.

Perez has also bolted on the soft tyres, but is currently languishing down in 16th position. It's always difficult to read too much into practice times as we don't know what fuel loads or engine modes the teams are running, but the Mexican is currently 1.3s down on his team-mate who heads the timesheets.

Leclerc meanwhile has dipped two wheels over the freshly-inserted gravel on the exit of Turn 12. The solution here is similar to what was introduced for the Red Bull Ring, where previously drivers had no consequence bar a laptime deletion for transgressing the circuit limits.

Russell is aghast at Tsunoda as he gets on the power on the exit of Turn 1 and attempts to blast by the RB driver to his right, but the Japanese moves across and Russell has to slow with his right-hand wheels on the grass. Fruity language on the radio is the result.

Continuing the Noah's Ark theme, the RB drivers are also huddling together in ninth and tenth spots as Ricciardo improves to nestle in behind his team-mate. This event one year ago marked the Australian's return to the F1 hot seat, after he replaced the disappointing Nyck de Vries.

Leclerc was less than a tenth behind Sainz, but much of that time loss could probably be attributed to a big oversteer moment exiting the penultimate corner. Remember, it has a modified floor here this weekend, which it hopes will address the problems introduced by the Barcelona upgrade that didn't quite live up to its name.

Both Ferrari drivers are running on the hard tyres at the moment. They are line astern in the order too, with Sainz seventh and Leclerc eighth, both over eight tenths off the pace set by Verstappen on the soft.

After missing the opening 13 minutes of the session, Piastri does now join the fray on the medium tyre.

Norris has had a bit of a drama at the penultimate corner with the back-end stepping out dramatically on his McLaren, causing him to back out of a lap. He's been shuffled back to fifth in the order as Hamilton and Bottas spring ahead.