Paul Jeffrey
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Formula One continued beyond the Grand Prix weekend on Tuesday, with all 11 teams in attendance at Budapest.
Not unlike the recent Hungarian Grand Prix it was Ferrari on top at the end of the day of running, however it would be a new name in the form of Italian up and coming GP2 driver Charles Leclerc who would be behind the wheel of the scarlet machine on this occasion.
Leclerc would be making his 2017 Ferrari debut on Tuesday and put in a composed performance behind the wheel of the championship leading SF70H, topping out the times just under a tenth of a second ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne in the McLaren and a further nine tenths up on Mercedes Hungarian Grand Prix podium finisher Valterri Bottas in P3.
Bottas running almost a full second away from the front running pace can be explained away by his involvement in Pirelli 2018 tyre testing duties, with the Finnish star engaging in a substantial workload as Mercedes clocked up over 100 laps each for both Bottas and junior driver George Russell. Russell would also be finding himself in a 2017 specification Formula One car for the very first time in Hungary, completing a trouble free programme of work on his way to securing the fourth best time, just under half a second behind his more experienced team leader for the day.
With Felipe Massa still suffering from the effects of his Hungarian Grand Prix weekend illness, Lance Stroll would be called up to the Williams team on Tuesday, completing plenty of running in something of a hybrid FW40 in Hungary. With the once great British team struggling for podium challenging pace this season, Chief Technical Officer Paddy Lowe has confirmed the team are running some fairly dramatic technical enhancements during the two day test:
"There are some fairly significant bits that we're trying," said Lowe. "We're doing some interesting bits of R&D. Some are relevant for this year, but some are things we need to learn and understand for next year. There's some important work going on, actually.
"It's a set of experiments, that's the best way to put it, which is how we always conduct our testing. Where that leaves us in terms of what we take racing is a downstream consideration."
Stroll would have a reasonably uneventful day in the Williams car on his way to fifth in the final timesheets, clocking in a mammoth 137 laps and ending the day 2.1 seconds down on the pace setting Ferrari team."It's a set of experiments, that's the best way to put it, which is how we always conduct our testing. Where that leaves us in terms of what we take racing is a downstream consideration."
Next up on the scoreboard would be Force India F1 rookie Nikita Mazepin, making his first appearance for the Force India team as the Russian takes time out of his European Formula Three season to share driving duties with another Formula One rookie - Mercedes DTM driver and two time DTM race winner Lucas Auer, who would end the day seven tenths down on his co driver on Tuesday in ninth positon.
Settling in between the two Force India drivers would be Renault test driver Nicholas Latifi in seventh, and Indonesian F2 racer Sean Gelael, who suffered a fractured day of running as track time was cut short with various technical issues on his Toro Rosso car. Despite a difficult time earlier in the day, Gelael would concentrate on longer runs in the afternoon and eventually wrap up running with the sixth highest total of laps courtesy of 100 tours of the hot and dusty Hungaroring track.
Haas’s American test driver Santino Ferrucci would end up in tenth position with 101 laps to his name, ending the day ahead of a troubled Max Verstappen in 11th position and F2 racer Gustav Malja last of all in the Sauber car.
Testing continues tomorrow, where fan favourite Robert Kubica continues his comeback attempt with the Renault team.
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Impressed with any of the drivers in today's test? Looking forward to Kubica in a modern car, running an official session, for the first time since his accident? Let us know in the comments section below!
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