Hungarian GP: Encouraging FP1 for Williams

The Williams F1 team would again have Valtteri Bottas replacing Bruno Senna in the opening Friday practice for the 2012 Hungarian Grand Prix. He would join regular driver Pastor Maldonado for the ninety minute session. Pirelli had brought the medium and soft tyres for this weekend and on a sunny day Vergne would be the first driver to take to the track. Both Valtteri and Pastor would complete their installation laps running on the medium tyres. It would not be until after the first half hour Valtteri being faster than Pastor with a time of 1m:25.235 to be fifth to be one place ahead of Pastor. Pastor's lap time had been a 1m:25.465. Valtteri would improve his time with a 1m:24.574 but remained in fifth. After his first run Valtteri would be in sixth with Pastor seventh.

For the Williams team this mornings session was mainly about aero evaluation runs as well as data gathering. With thirty minutes of the session remaining both Valtteri and Pastor would return to the track and we would see Pastor take a trip across the gravel at Turn ten. He was able to continue. Fastest at this time was Hamilton with a lap time of 1m:22.821. Valtteri's quickest lap time had been a 1m:24.562 and Pastor a 1m:24.564. They had dropped down a few places to be ninth and tenth. But Valtteri would improve with a 1m:24.152 to be seventh. Second fastest was Button from Rosberg, Schumacher, Massa, Alonso, with Perez and Webber eighth and ninth.

Pastor would pit as Button improved his second fastest lap time with a 1m:22.922. So far no one had used the soft compound most likely due to the poor grip levels of the circuit. Valtteri would pit with just over fifteen minutes remaining. Pastor had dropped to be twelfth with Grosjean and Kobayashi moving up to ninth and tenth. Alonso would improve to be fourth with a 1m:23.630. He would find more pace setting a 1m:23.503 to be third. With under ten minutes of the session remaining the track became quite busy with both Williams drivers taking to the track. Pastor was able to find time in the middle sector setting a 1m:24.449 to be twelfth with only a few minutes remaining. Valtteri had dropped to be ninth as the session came to an end. Webber and Vettel were down in thirteenth and fifteenth. In his final lap Grosjean would move up to fifth with a 1m:23.633.

Pastor was also able to find that extra pace setting a 1m:24.300 to improve to be eleventh. So the session would end with Valtteri leading Pastor with the pair separated by just one place. An encouraging start to proceedings for the Williams team as they start the process of assessing the data collected during the session.

Pos  Driver         	Team		      Time       Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      1m22.821   30
 2.  Jenson Button      McLaren-Mercedes      1m22.922s  24
 3.  Fernando Alonso    Ferrari               1m23.397s  24
 4.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              1m23.628s  29
 5.  Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Renault         1m23.633s  24
 6.  Michael Schumacher Mercedes              1m23.845s  26
 7.  Felipe Massa       Ferrari               1m23.904s  25
 8.  Kimi Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault         1m23.983s  24
 9.  Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Renault      1m24.152s  24
10.  Sergio Perez       Sauber-Ferrari        1m24.268s  27
11.  Pastor Maldonado   Williams-Renault      1m24.300s  23
12.  Kamui Kobayashi    Sauber-Ferrari        1m24.394s  19
13.  Mark Webber        Red Bull-Renault      1m24.546s  24
14.  Paul di Resta      Force India-Mercedes  1m24.559s  22
15.  Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault      1m24.608s  25
16.  Daniel Ricciardo   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m25.354s  25
17.  Jean-Eric Vergne   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m25.559s  27
18.  Jules Bianchi      Force India-Mercedes  1m25.715s  26
19.  Vitaly Petrov      Caterham-Renault      1m26.440s  27
20.  Charles Pic        Marussia-Cosworth     1m26.705s  23
21.  Heikki Kovalainen  Caterham-Renault      1m26.755s  28
22.  Timo Glock         Marussia-Cosworth     1m27.015s  24
23.  Pedro de la Rosa   HRT-Cosworth          1m27.101s  21
24.  Dani Clos          HRT-Cosworth          1m28.176s  24