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Ferrari, iron fist in Hungary

The Ferrari team dominated the first day of free practice at the Hungaroring Circuit, the scene this weekend of the Hungarian Grand Prix, the thirteenth round of the Formula 1 World Championship, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz signing the best times in each of the two sessions.

The last appointment before the summer break in the championship opened with a sun that is not expected especially for this Saturday, where the forecast is for rain, so everything seen can be misleading, although it did show that the ‘Scuderia’ aspires to everything to trim the dutch Max Verstappen (Red Bull), although the current world champion is not too far away.

At the moment, Ferrari and Red Bull seemed far superior to the rest of the grid, with the Italian team showing good sensations on both the soft and medium tyres, and with McLaren as a ‘surprise guest’ ahead of Mercedes, which was not as far ahead as expected, and with Fernando Alonso (Alpine) blowing out the candles for her 41st birthday with a good feeling.

The first session of the day was for Carlos Sainz, who made his ambitions clear at the Hungaroring, and who was, along with Verstappen, the only one to drop below the 1:19 barrier, always on the soft tyres, and with Leclerc on the prowl.

The panorama changed somewhat in the second training session, in which the teams started with the medium, where Ferrari also dominated, this time with the Monegasque driver, who with this tire was able to finally go down to the start of the 1:19.

However, all the ‘first swords’ later went to the soft, which did not change the scenario too much, with the ‘Cavallino Rampante’ always at the top of the time table. The second classified in the World Cup finished with the best time on Friday with 1:18.445.

After Leclerc, the English stood Lando Norris, who warned of the potential of McLaren this weekend and that he was just over two tenths away, to finish ahead of a Sainz who was third very close to his former team and again ahead of Verstappen, who stayed almost three tenths. The ‘Top 5’ was completed by the other McLaren, the Australian Daniel Ricciardo, although already close to half a second.

This performance of the Woking team could be an added problem both for Mercedes, who could not be with the best this Friday in terms of performance, and for Alpine, led by the ‘birthday boy’ Alonso.

The two-time world champion, on the day of his 41st birthday, once again demonstrated that he handles the slow Hungarian track well and left with positive feelings, six tenths off Leclerc’s time and quite clearly beating his teammate, the Frenchman Esteban Ocon, winner last year at the Hungaroring.

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