Max Verstappen gives hope to rivals after coming 11th in Hungarian GP practice

Max Verstappen handed his rivals the slimmest of hopes that he could be beaten at Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix after he finished only 11th in practice. The dominant Dutchman, who has won eight of the 10 rounds so far and six in succession to establish a 99-point lead in the standings, has mastered all conditions this season. But Verstappen unusually ended the sole dry running here six tenths back from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc , with McLaren’s Lando Norris – fresh from his impressive second place at the British Grand Prix – 0.015 seconds adrift of the scarlet car. Lewis Hamilton was 16th with Mercedes team-mate George Russell 20th and last on a topsy-turvy day at the Hungaroring. Despite Verstappen being off the pace, times in practice must be treated with a degree of caution as different setup and fuel loads are trialled. It is also worth noting that a number of the top teams will have held back fresh rubber following the reduction of tyre allocation from 13 sets to 11 here. Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez took two wins from the opening four, but the Mexican has been on a torrid run since, and his bad form continued when he crashed out of first practice. The opening one-hour running of the weekend was dry and barely a few minutes old when Perez – on his first lap – lost control of his Red Bull and ended up in the wall. The Mexican put two wheels on the grass under braking for the fifth corner, sending him into a pirouette and into the tyre barrier. Perez was unharmed in the accident but he sustained significant damage to the front of his machine. It also denied the rest of the field any dry running as the heavens opened with the red flags deployed to recover Perez’s wounded machine. The 33-year-old is under increasing pressure at Red Bull following five-consecutive qualifying sessions in which he has failed to make it into Q3. On each of those occasions, Verstappen has scored pole position in the other Red Bull. Daniel Ricciardo’s comeback at Red Bull’s junior team AlphaTauri is also likely to be playing on Perez’s mind, with the Australian admitting he is daring to dream about the possibility of a return to the grid’s all-conquering team. Perez was able to take part in the day’s concluding action but he locked up and flat-spotted his front-right tyre and could manage only 18th, 1.3 sec slower than Leclerc. Ricciardo, back in the saddle in place of the sacked Nyck De Vries, has a dozen races to prove he still possesses the prowess which carried him to eight wins. He finished 14th in his first outing since last year’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, seven tenths back and 10 places behind his new team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.