Hamilton again fastest for McLaren at rain-struck Hungaroring

By Berthold Bouman

Lewis Hamilton was once again the fastest driver at the Hungaroring during the second practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday. The 2008 World Champion lapped the circuit in a best-time of 1.21.995s, which was 0.826 second faster than his time this morning.

As the radar had predicted heavy rain Hamilton had set his time on the soft tyres, he was followed by Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus who was second this afternoon, the Finn was 0.185s slower than the McLaren driver.

After a heavy rain shower had hit the Hungarian track half-way the session, it was impossible to improve the times set on slicks, and many teams decided to keep the cars in the garage afraid to waste tyres they might need for qualifying or the race.

Bruno Senna was back in the car this afternoon and was third after he had completed 33 laps in the Williams, his team colleague Pastor Maldonado was 12th. This time Felipe Massa was faster than Fernando Alonso, and the Ferrari pair took fourth and fifth place respectively.

Jenson Button was sixth in the second McLaren, 0.752s slower than Hamilton. Paul di Resta was the fastest Force India driver and landed seventh position, Nico Hulkenberg who was back in the car after Jules Bianchi had taken over from him this morning, the German scored a somewhat disappointing 13th position.

Although Sebastian Vettel denied the new engine mapping regulations would affect his team, he was in eighth place while Australian Mark Webber was 14th this afternoon. Romain Grosjean was once again the last driver to finish within one second of the fastest time set by Hamilton, and took ninth place this afternoon.

On tenth and 11th place were Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, but the difference between the two Mercedes drivers was just four-thousandths of a second. Sauber was this afternoon a bit further down the order, this time Kamui Kobayashi was faster than Sergio Perez, the Japanese driver took 15th place and his Mexican team colleague was 18th.

Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo took 16th and 17th place for Toro Rosso, while Caterham was once again the fastest of the ‘new’ teams, with Vitaly Petrov in 19th and Heikki Kovalainen in 20th place.

Timo Glock in the Marussia was 21st, Pedro de la Rosa 22nd for HRT, Charles Pic was 23rd in the second Marussia and the 24th and last spot was for Indian HRT driver Narain Karthikeyan.