Hungarian GP: Williams makes improvements in FP2

The second Friday practice session for the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix would again see the Williams Martini cars lower down the times than usual, despite the fact that after the first half hour Valtteri Bottas was sixth and Felipe Massa seventh. But like the earlier session both drivers were well over a second off the quickest times. With the soft tyre runs Valtteri would move up to be third, 1m:26.053 but would not remain in this position very long. For Felipe his soft tyre run would see him spin at the chicane, having lost the rear of the car under braking. This would see him have to return to his garage to get his car examined and would miss out some of the runs planned for later in the session. Valtteri was forced to have a change of plans completing the longer runs on the option tyre.

Valtteri would finish the session in eighth, 1m:25.999, while Felipe was tenth, 1m:26.402, seeing Valtteri a considerable margin ahead of his team-mate. At the end of the session the quickest time was a 1m:24.482 from Hamilton followed by Rosberg, Vettel, Alonso, Magnussen, Raikkonen, Ricciardo, Valtteri, Button, and Felipe tenth.

The Williams team had brought several updates for the FW36 which were tested over the Friday sessions. Valtteri felt that the team has made a step forward with the updated car.

“We made steps forward so that's really nice to see,” Bottas said. “We went through all the updates and were trying all the bits. I'm really that happy that everything we put on the car – that was planned – made the car better. So that was good to see, but obviously I think it's going to be really tight this weekend.”

With neither Williams managing to finish higher than seventh in the two sessions, Bottas said the team was aware it was likely to be less competitive in Hungary.

“I think it was really expected that could be the case. It's pretty difficult to predict where we will be tomorrow because from Friday practice to qualifying a lot of things can change. I know we can still improve everything for tomorrow. I can probably get a better lap in and we as a team can get the set-up better, so it's going to be close.

“All the bits that we put on the car which were new made the car better, so that was really good to see. I think there is still a lot of room – certainly in lap time – to go down tomorrow. From Friday to Saturday we can make some good steps.”

And Bottas said Williams is still aiming to beat both Red Bull and Ferrari despite the circuit not suiting the car as much as previous tracks.

“We know here it's going to be more difficult. It's going to be really close I think this weekend but that should be the target. We know it's not going to be as easy as some other circuits but we need to be aiming for it.”

Over at Williams, Massa is happy with the new rear wing the team was working with today. "It was positive so we're definitely going to keep it on the car. We're already having both cars with the new rear wing and it was giving what it's supposed to give."

Pos Driver         	Team		        Time     Laps
 1. Lewis Hamilton      Mercedes                1m24.482s 38
 2. Nico Rosberg        Mercedes                1m24.720s 38
 3. Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull-Renault        1m25.111s 33
 4. Fernando Alonso     Ferrari                 1m25.437s 26
 5. Kevin Magnussen     McLaren-Mercedes        1m25.580s 34
 6. Kimi Raikkonen      Ferrari                 1m25.730s 30
 7. Daniel Ricciardo    Red Bull-Renault        1m25.983s 29
 8. Valtteri Bottas     Williams-Mercedes       1m25.999s 37
 9. Jenson Button       McLaren-Mercedes        1m26.234s 33
10. Felipe Massa        Williams-Mercedes       1m26.402s 18
11. Daniil Kvyat        Toro Rosso-Renault      1m26.689s 42
12. Jean-Eric Vergne    Toro Rosso-Renault      1m26.703s 37
13. Nico Hulkenberg     Force India-Mercedes    1m26.789s 39
14. Adrian Sutil        Sauber-Ferrari          1m26.919s 41
15. Sergio Perez        Force India-Mercedes    1m27.013s 39 
16. Pastor Maldonado    Lotus-Renault           1m27.019s 40
17. Romain Grosjean     Lotus-Renault           1m27.021s 14
18. Esteban Gutierrez   Sauber-Ferrari          1m27.480s 32
19. Kamui Kobayashi     Caterham-Renault        1m28.370s 35 
20. Jules Bianchi       Marussia-Ferrari        1m28.469s 26
21. Max Chilton         Marussia-Ferrari        1m28.586s 35
22. Marcus Ericsson     Caterham-Renault        1m29.036s 34