F2: Leclerc leads the way in free practice

Charles Leclerc
Charles Leclerc

Charles Leclerc has continued in Budapest where he left off in Silverstone by topping this morning’s FIA Formula 2 Championship free practice session at the Hungaroring, setting the pace early on before concentrating on race simulations to take the top spot ahead of Oliver Rowland and Nyck De Vries.

The Monegasque driver stopped the clocks at 1:27.516 about a third of the way into the hot and sunny session, overturning his own previous best laps to annex the top of the timesheets for the remainder of the session, with his rivals able to get within a tenth but no closer as they fine-tuned their set ups for this afternoon and beyond.

Louis Deletraz set the first quickest lap but was soon deposed by the Ferrari Academy driver, who then went faster each time round for 3 laps as he improved his times at a slightly faster rate than his rivals: they maintained a gap throughout the hot lap fight on their first sets, but just couldn’t knock Leclerc off his perch.

After emerging on fresh rubber all of the grid continued their work until De Vries pushed a little too hard, juddering over the new curb at turn 11 before finding the wall to prompt a brief VSC period to remove his stricken vehicle: it was the only incident of note in a quiet session ahead of this afternoon’s qualifying session.

Behind the top 3 Norman Nato, Nicholas Latifi, Alexander Albon, Sergio Canamasas and Nobuharu Matsushita were well within a second of pole, which covered the top 15 drivers and promises to bring the heat in the battle for pole position.

Preliminary Free Practice Classification

Pos

Driver

Team

Laptime

Laps

1.

Charles Leclerc

PREMA Racing

1:27.516

20

2.

Oliver Rowland

DAMS

1:27.586

19

3.

Nyck De Vries

Rapax

1:27.674

10

4.

Norman Nato

Pertamina Arden

1:27.746

23

5.

Nicholas Latifi

DAMS

1:27.876

19

6.

Alexander Albon

ART Grand Prix

1:27.954

18

7.

Sergio Canamasas

Rapax

1:27.978

18

8.

Nobuharu Matsushita

ART Grand Prix

1:28.036

19

9.

Jordan King

MP Motorsport

1:28.122

19

10.

Antonio Fuoco

PREMA Racing

1:28.140

20

11.

Artem Markelov

RUSSIAN TIME

1:28.259

19

12.

Luca Ghiotto

RUSSIAN TIME

1:28.260

20

13.

Robert Visoiu

Campos Racing

1:28.359

20

14.

Gustav Malja

Racing Engineering

1:28.407

16

15.

Ralph Boschung

Campos Racing

1:28.425

18

16.

Sean Gelael

Pertamina Arden

1:28.563

20

17.

Louis Deletraz

Racing Engineering

1:28.645

19

18.

Santino Ferrucci

Trident

1:28.685

22

19.

Sergio Sette Camara

MP Motorsport

1:28.886

19

20.

Nabil Jeffri

Trident

1:29.129

20