Can Red Bull derail the Ferrari juggernaut?

The Hungarian Grand Prix weekend has been circled on the calendars of everyone at Red Bull from the moment Daniel Ricciardo crossed the line to win in Monaco in May as the team's next big chance.

But Friday practice at the Hungaroring proved that Ferrari is a serious threat and that Red Bull has its work cut out if it's to steal a fourth victory of the season, after Sebastian Vettel set the pace in practice two.

Red Bull will have a shot at victory on race pace, but those anticipating a Monaco-style walkover will be disappointed.

"We should have a strong car in Budapest, but I don't think it will be to the extent of Monaco - everyone expected us to dominate and we did," said Daniel Ricciardo before getting to the Hungaroring.

"I don't think it will be that strong in Budapest but we should have a good chance to be close to the win at least."

Friday's results suggested that getting close to the win will be possible, but a glance at the sector times of the Ferraris and the Red Bulls shows exactly where the difference is being made.

Vettel was a massive 0.314 seconds faster than Red Bull pacesetter Max Verstappen through the first sector, which includes the start/finish straight, the quick squirt to Turn 2 and then the blast up to Turn 4.

And given Red Bull's complaints about the disadvantage on power when the engine is under lateral load, with the run to Turn 4 preceded by a brisk right-hander, none of this is a surprise. But once at Turn 4, the tables turn.

By the end of the lap, Verstappen was only 0.074s down. This tells you everything you need to know about the Hungaroring. Yes, it's a chassis circuit, but there are some early straights to bank some time on. That's why Verstappen suggested the circuit isn't even Red Bull's second best track.

"I would put Singapore on [number] two and this track on three," said Verstappen. "Singapore is a street circuit, so as a driver you can also make a little difference there."

"I would put Singapore on [number] two and this track on three for Red Bull" Max Verstappen

But on pace, it looks like a Ferrari vs Red Bull battle for pole position. Right now, the smart money would be on Ferrari, even though the Red Bull drivers could perhaps find a touch more time with perfect laps.

Ferrari will be expected to take a step with qualifying engine modes activated, and if it's nip and tuck now between the two teams that could put the red cars out of reach.

Unless, of course, the new ExxonMobil fuel Red Bull is using can help to deliver an extra kick.

SINGLE-LAP PACE

1 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m16.834s
2 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m16.908s
3 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m17.587s*
4 Haas (Grosjean), 1m18.065s
5 Renault (Sainz), 1m18.495s
6 Toro Rosso (Gasly), 1m18.518s
7 Force India (Ocon), 1m18.671s
8 McLaren (Alonso), 1m18.857s
9 Sauber (Ericsson), 1m19.043s
10 Williams (Stroll), 1m19.645s
*set on softs

Neither Mercedes driver completed their qualifying simulation laps on ultrasofts. Both drivers were struggling increasingly with the rear end as their laps progressed.

Valtteri Bottas backed out after a big moment in the Turn 12 right-hander, while Lewis Hamilton made it to the final corner before he got spat wide when the rear stepped out and ruined his lap.

So, we don't know what the completed lap time would have been. But we can look at the two sectors that were completed, which gives this order for the top three.

SECTOR 1 & 2 TIME

1 Ferrari (Vettel), 54.910s
2 Red Bull (Verstappen), 55.099s
3 Mercedes (Hamilton), 55.127s

You can extrapolate that pace to a lap time of 1m17.137s for Hamilton on ultrasofts, which would put him three-tenths off the pace. But that is generous because the problem seemed to be Mercedes overheating the rear tyres as the lap went on and there's no guarantee keeping them alive to the final sector wouldn't cost time earlier on.

Whichever way you dice it, on a circuit that peaked at around 50C on Friday, Mercedes was the third best of the big three, albeit by not as big a margin as the timesheets showed thanks to setting their best laps on softs.

Mercedes struggling here isn't such a surprise. Even though team boss Toto Wolff has declared the old patterns gone, things don't look to have changed in Hungary.

"What we're seeing this season is a bit of a different pattern," said Wolff at Silverstone earlier this month.

"It's just a constant learning of the tyre, which is the single most denominator for performance. And you get it right, you get it wrong. We need to learn and try to get control of the tyres in the best possible way.

Mercedes struggling here isn't such a surprise. Even though team boss Toto Wolff has declared the old patterns gone, things don't look to have changed in Hungary

"Obviously, I would have loved for us to build a gap in Montreal and in Austria and Silverstone and then lose some in Hungary and lose some in Singapore. But we need to try to right and score as many points as possible."

The problem for Mercedes is that some of the old patterns remain, and generally, thanks to Ferrari's improvement, it's the bad ones for the Silver Arrows.

Hungary has not been a great track for Mercedes throughout the V6 turbo hybrid era, with the high track temperatures making it very hard to manage the rears on a qualifying lap - exactly what we saw on Friday.

The challenge is to get the fronts up to temperature without overdoing it on the rears, a tricky balance to achieve. Bottas had multiple snappy rear end moments on his push lap, while watching Hamilton through the long Turn 13 he was clearly struggling with the rear even before he had his bigger moment at the following corner.

At the Hungaroring, the corners come thick and fast after the first sector so there's little time for surface temperature to be dissipated. So, it builds, you slide, and because you slide the temperatures continue to build - and the Mercedes looked to be getting caught in that spiral.

This is multiplied by struggling more with management as the tyres get softer, and while the hypersoft isn't in use, the ultrasoft isn't the optimum tyre for the car.

But with rain expected overnight, Saturday could be cooler. Every degree of track temperature that is lost is good news for Mercedes, so that could help - although it's always going to be a challenge and getting a clear preparation lap will be critical.

Whether that will hold for the race, when the management of the tyres is a different challenge to that of a single lap, who knows? As Hamilton pointed out on Thursday: "Last year in the race I was the quickest'.

The long-run pace, based on seven laps on ultrasofts with anomalous slow laps discounted, suggests it will be difficult for Hamilton to do so again in 2018.

But what it does show is that Red Bull potentially has race-winning pace. If - and it's a big if - its drivers can get up front.

Most likely, that means Verstappen given Ricciardo is using the older 'spec A' engine after his 'spec B' hit trouble in the German Grand Prix.

But if Verstappen cannot get pole position, and given the fact Red Bull usually looks slightly stronger on Friday than it turns out to be on Saturday while Ferrari goes the other way, that seems unlikely. So, how does he gain track position?

The undercut can be very potent here, but Ferrari can defend from that so it could make life very difficult for Red Bull.

And with a one-stopper and a two-stopper calculated by Pirelli to be very similar in terms of time, there's no reason to go for more than one change of tyres.

The only other potential curveball is what tyres the frontrunners start on. Qualifying on the soft will have great appeal for the big three, although if Ferrari remains confident on ultrasofts we could see a repeat of the split that we saw in France and Austria.

LONG-RUN PACE (SEVEN LAPS ON ULTRASOFTS)

1 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m22.351s
2 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m22.456s
3 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m22.667
4 Renault (Sainz), 1m23.497s
5 Haas (Magnussen), 1m23.512s*
6 Force India (Ocon), 1m23.591s
7 Sauber (Ericsson), 1m23.659s
8 Toro Rosso (Gasly), 1m23.662s
9 McLaren (Alonso), 1m23.989s
10 Williams (Stroll), 1m24.379s

*six-lap run

The soft-tyre data for long runs is patchier but Vettel did a very impressive run late on when he put in seven laps at an average of 1m20.908s - significantly faster than Ricciardo's pace (Verstappen did not do a long run on softs at that stage).

But that will most likely have been on a lighter fuel load having started on a more for the ultrasoft run.

That's just one more indication that Ferrari is very much favourite at the track where Red Bull had hoped to nick another victory.

Ferrari is very much favourite at the track where Red Bull had hoped to nick another victory

And if it plays out as expected on Saturday, then Red Bull's best hope could be that Kimi Raikkonen, as he did on Friday, lines up behind its two cars. That could allow it to force the issue strategically and increase the chances of getting one car ahead.

But much could depend on the Saturday temperature, and the work done overnight. And given Ferrari gets stronger as Friday turns to Saturday, there's every reason for those at Red Bull to start wondering if it's Singapore in September that they should have got excited about in the first place.