Formula One news

McLaren confident with early pace

McLaren Mercedes drivers Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton finished Friday's second free practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest in first and third positions respectively. Fernando did 29 laps and set a time of 1:20.919, which was the fastest lap of the day. Lewis completed 32 laps with a best time of 1:21.338 before he spun off with only a few minutes until the end of practice. In the morning session, Fernando was fourth fastest with 1:22.585 (18 laps) whilst Lewis was fifth with 1:22.654 (19 laps).

"Today was good and I am happy with the how the car feels so far," said Alonso. "We spent the morning working on the set-up and limited the number of tyres we used. The track here improves as the weekend goes on so we chose to do all the Bridgestone Potenza tyre evaluation in the afternoon session. I think we are in a good position and I am looking forward to the rest of the weekend where we should continue to be strong."

Hamilton commented, "Today went smoothly, apart from my spin towards the end of the second session, which meant that I missed out on my last run, so maybe I could have gone faster. The spin happened as I was catching Yamamoto on a flying lap and I was probably a little too fast going into the corner. Despite this we were able to make some positive steps and I am confident with our performance so far at this track."

Team boss Ron Dennis added, "An encouraging start to the weekend, with both cars looking competitive. Obviously we will work hard for further improvements overnight but we are comfortable with the progress we have made so far. Unfortunately Lewis spun in the closing minutes of the session, but this did not hamper our programme too much."

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