Hungarian F1 Grand Prix 2017 Qualifying: Daniel Ricciardo Sets Friday's FP2 Pace

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo headed the timesheets in both the first and second practice sessions at the Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix on Friday. 

In the afternoon's action, he posted a lap time of one minute, 18.455 seconds to pip championship leader Sebastian Vettel by just under two-tenths of a second, while Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton were third, fourth and fifth, respectively.

Australian Ricciardo's fastest lap of 1:18.486 saw him finish the morning session more than two-tenths up on Ferrari's Raikkonen, while Mercedes drivers Hamilton and Bottas finished third and fourth, respectively.

Vettel could only go sixth-fastest in his Ferrari in the first session and finished over a second down from Ricciardo, while McLaren enjoyed a good morning as Fernando Alonso was seventh-fastest and Stoffel Vandoorne eighth.

Renault's Jolyon Palmer endured a miserable day as he drew a red flag late in the first session after losing his front wing and then crashed hard into the barriers in the afternoon.       

FP2 Recap

Formula One's official Twitter account provided the full timings from Friday's afternoon session:

It was a session full of incident, with Palmer not the only driver to hit the barriers at speed.

Just under 40 minutes from the end of the run, Sauber's Pascal Wehrlein found the wall at Turn 11 having failed to recover after losing his rear end.

Britain's Palmer then endured a similar fate at the final turn, wrecking the right-hand side of his Renault after he overcorrected, per Formula One:

Both drivers escaped without injury, but the interruptions caused by the two red flags made for an uneven session.

None of the drivers were able to string together the consecutive laps they would have wanted, but Red Bull finished on top with Ricciardo having impressed all day.

His team-mate Max Verstappen finished sixth fastest, just under half a second down on Ricciardo.

Meanwhile, Hamilton was unable to post a clear lap on the supersoft compound due to the numerous interruptions in the afternoon.

Saturday's final practice session is likely to be action-packed as all the teams try to get the laps in and gather the data they could not in a haphazard second session. 

FP1 Recap

Formula One's official Twitter account provided the full timings from Friday's morning session:

Ricciardo set the early benchmark with a 1:21.212 before two spins in quick succession from Vandoorne at Turn 2 and Haas' Romain Grosjean at Turn 11.

Vettel then ended up in the gravel at Turn 9 as drivers struggled with grip at the Hungaroring.

The first red flag came out as Antonio Giovinazzi, driving in place of Kevin Magnussen in the Haas for the morning session, hit the barrier at Turn 11, per Formula One:

With half an hour of the session remaining, Hamilton set a new and emphatic benchmark with a 1:18.858 to go fastest from team-mate Bottas.

But Ricciardo then put himself back to the top of the timesheets as he edged six-thousandths ahead of the reigning world champion with a 1:18.852, and he upped the ante almost straight away with his flying 1:18.486.

Raikkonen then went second-fastest with a 1:18.720, a boost for Ferrari during a session in which Vettel endured a frustrating 90 minutes.

The German is just one point ahead of Hamilton in the world championship standings and will need to improve over the weekend if he is to hold off the Brit.

It was a frustrating end to a decent session for Palmer. He managed to finish 10th-fastest with a 1:20.461, but he lost his front wing in dramatic fashion, with the debris spraying across the track just before the end of the morning's action.