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Hungaroring GP2: Vandoorne tops practice as Cecotto and Palmer collide

McLaren protege Stoffel Vandoorne was fastest in practice for round seven of the GP2 Series at the Hungaroring, in a session that was overshadowed by an incident between series leader Jolyon Palmer and Johnny Cecotto Jr

With the track temperature soaring to way over 50 degress Celsius, the best times were set relatively early.

ART's Vandoorne recorded his 1m29.479s on his third flying lap on the medium-compound tyre, which beat the Carlin machine of Felipe Nasr's 1m29.540s by 0.061s and would have put him 19th fastest in the earlier Formula 1 practice session.

But the big news was the collision between championship frontrunners Palmer and Cecotto.

Palmer was on an out-lap and keeping well out of the way at Turn 2 as Cecotto appeared to totally miss his braking point and slammed into the left-side of Palmer's car, flying into the air over Palmer's left-front wheel and damaging both of their cars.

After frantic repairs, Palmer rejoined the session for some exploratory laps, having earlier set the fourth-fastest time. His DAMS team-mate Stephane Richelmi was third quickest.

Silverstone and Hockenheim race winner Mitch Evans was fifth, ahead of Cecotto, who will need a good excuse to avoid a grid penalty on Saturday.

Kimiya Sato was seventh fastest on his return to Campos Racing, although his seat will be under threat from Alexander Rossi at the next round at Spa. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs was eighth quickest.

Recent pacesetting Racing Engineering duo Stefano Coletti and Raffaele Marciello struggled in the session, finishing it 19th and 20th respectively.

Elsewhere, Conor Daly stopped his Venezuela GP Lazarus car at Turn 8 with a mechanical issue.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time       Gap    
 1.  Stoffel Vandoorne    ART                 1m29.479s         
 2.  Felipe Nasr          Carlin              1m29.540s  +0.061s
 3.  Stephane Richelmi    DAMS                1m29.838s  +0.359s
 4.  Jolyon Palmer        DAMS                1m29.877s  +0.398s
 5.  Mitch Evans          Russian Time        1m29.950s  +0.471s
 6.  Johnny Cecotto Jr    Trident             1m29.989s  +0.510s
 7.  Kimiya Sato          Campos              1m30.039s  +0.560s
 8.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs  Rapax               1m30.046s  +0.567s
 9.  Simon Trummer        Rapax               1m30.098s  +0.619s
10.  Daniel de Jong       MP                  1m30.164s  +0.685s
11.  Arthur Pic           Campos              1m30.244s  +0.765s
12.  Sergio Canamasas     Trident             1m30.254s  +0.775s
13.  Tom Dillmann         Caterham            1m30.282s  +0.803s
14.  Andrew Negrao        Arden               1m30.404s  +0.925s
15.  Marco Sorensen       MP                  1m30.415s  +0.936s
16.  Rio Haryanto         Caterham            1m30.438s  +0.959s
17.  Conor Daly           Lazarus             1m30.453s  +0.974s
18.  Nathanael Berthon    Lazarus             1m30.507s  +1.028s
19.  Stefano Coletti      Racing Engineering  1m30.512s  +1.033s
20.  Raffaele Marciello   Racing Engineering  1m30.691s  +1.212s
21.  Daniel Abt           Hilmer              1m30.718s  +1.239s
22.  Julian Leal          Carlin              1m30.807s  +1.328s
23.  Rene Binder          Arden               1m31.005s  +1.526s
24.  Jon Lancaster        Hilmer              1m31.178s  +1.699s
25.  Takuya Izawa         ART                 1m31.182s  +1.703s
26.  Artem Markelov       Russian Time        1m31.195s  +1.716s

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