Practice 1: Alonso 4th, Hamilton 5th

By Sam Cooper
August 5 2007

The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes formula one team have cmpleted the first practice session for this weekend Hungarian grand prix, with Fernando Alonso finishing the warm and sunny session fourth, with Britains Lewis Hamilton ending the session in 5th place.

The session started a pleasantly warm 27°C air temperature, with the track temperature 37°. Fifteen of the twenty two drivers taking part in the session, went out, to see what the track conditions were like, both McLaren’s went out early, to get a good feel of the dusty Hungaroring.

Newcomer to the Spyker team, Sakon Yamamoto, was the first driver to complete a timed run, nine lap into his first run, he managed to get his time down to a slow 1:30:849, his team-mate, Adrian Sutil, blitzed his team mates time by over 2.1 seconds.

The Two McLaren’s followed, Fernando and Lewis set times In the mid 1.23’s, a full seven seconds faster than the Spyker of Yamamoto. However many of the drivers reported rear tyre graining problems, hinting that the cars could go even faster than what they achieved today.

As the final 15 minutes of the session approached, Felipe Massa went fastest, only to be beaten by Robert Kubica, who went fastest with just minutes to go.

Times will be shown below.