Business as usual is the phrase that springs to mind following final practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix, as Ferrari and Mclaren fought for the top spot once again.
Felipe Massa, having looked the less likely of the two Ferrari runners so far this weekend, turned in one of his one lap wonders to secure fastest time of the hour – a 1:20.183 for the Brazilian.
The next runner – Fernando Alonso in the marginally quicker of the two Mclarens – stood a further two tenths down on 1:20.414, with team mate Lewis Hamilton next on 1:20.461.
The split times tell an interesting story as although the Mclaren pair appear comfortably on the Ferrari pace in sector one and two – indeed, Hamilton recorded the fastest in the first sector, a 28.5, compared to Massa on 28.9 – the role is reversed for the final part of the lap, where the Ferrari’s appear to have a clear couple of tenths over the Mercedes powered pair.
Kimi Raikkonen, never one to show his hand in meaningless practice sessions, found himself relegated to fifth by a late interloper, that being the BMW-Sauber of Nick Heidfeld.
Bar the opening session in which Robert Kubica was the quicker of the blue and white cars, Heidfeld has had the upper hand and put in a late one lap run to record 1:20.565, right on the Mclaren pace and a couple of tenths ahead of Raikkonen. Kubica could not – or chose not to – replicate his earlier session pace, and ended the hour in twelfth, a full second off Heidfelds time.
Showing good pace again was the Williams FW29, especially in the hands of the ever impressive Nico Rosberg, the German pipping the works Toyotas for sixth position with a time a tenth down on Raikkonen. This was no fluke, as Alex Wurz – not the best of one lap runners – put the second Williams in tenth spot, albeit a few tenths away from Rosberg.
Toyota took seventh and eighth, having been in the ball-park all session. The resurgence of Ralf Schumacher has been quite remarkable over these past few races, although he was eventually outpaced by Jarno Trulli this morning – but by less than a tenth of a second.
Red Bull appears to have a problem here, although Mark Webber utilised his prodigious pace to steal ninth position, the first man beyond a second from the leader. David Coulthard put the second car in fourteenth, just over a quarter of a second behind the Australian.
Hondas woes continue with Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello managing 18th and 20th respectively, with only a Toro Rosso and the two Spyker slower. Their customer team, the popular Super Aguri, again showed up the big concern with Anthony Davidson 11th and Takuma Sato 15th, taking it to the Red Bulls and the Renaults in serious style.
Renault are an enigma – great pace yesterday in session two, having shown none in the opening practice, and then nothing again today. 13th – Kovalainen and 17th for Fisichella is much less than the package should be capable of – I expect much more in the qualifying hour.
At STR Liuzzi won the in-house battle with new team mate Sebastian Vettel, trumping the German by four tenths and four places, and at Spyker there was no battle at all, although Sakon Yamamoto improved considerably to get within a few tenths of Adrian Sutil.
A fascinating qualifying ahead, then, and the possibility of a very light BMW spoiling the Mclaren-Ferrari party is a very real one.
Follow qualifying with UpdateF1 live commentary a little later on.
Written: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:26:14
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