“We took the right path,” says Leclerc as Ferrari finished Friday on a high in Hungary

Ferrari topped the two opening training sessions in Hungary, with Charles Leclerc setting the fastest time FP2 After Carlos Sainz drove FP1 – Monaco said he had enjoyed a “very productive day” as Scuderia set the pace.

Leclerc, who entered Hungary with victory in his eyes After disappointment in France, he finished third FP1 He then led FP2 by a margin of 0.217secs ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris, with Sainz trailing by 0.014secs in P3 to leave Max Verstappen fourth at the end of the session in Hungaroring.

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“It was a very productive day, I changed a lot of things on the car on my part,” said Leclerc. “FP1 was very challenging, FP2 went the right way and very confident we did the right thing for Sunday.”

And he wasn’t too bothered about the possibility of heavy rain on Saturday, saying, “It looks like it’s going to rain tomorrow, so we have to be on top of this and obviously put the frames in the right window, which is always a tough thing whenever it rains. That’s going to be our priority.” key, but hopefully if we can put it in the right window, we can still have that feature.”

2022 Hungarian GP FP2: On board Charles Leclerc’s fastest lap

On the other hand, Sainz scored the fastest time in FP1 to leave Verstappen second by 0.130sec, and Leclerc trailed by 0.159sec in P3. The Spanish driver almost faced the opposite fate of Leclerc on Friday, as he made clear that setup changes were costing him performance and confidence in FP2.

“Sure, once I got out of the box in FP1 I felt very comfortable, very happy with the car’s balance, but you obviously always feel like there are things to improve, things to be found,” Sainz said. “We’ve tried two different directions to set up by going to FP2, which made us lose some confidence in the performance, but we know exactly why, and for tomorrow and Sunday we think we can go back to where we were in FP1 and be more competitive.”

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He added that Friday was almost a “test day”, with thunderstorms imminent in Hungary.

“It’s tough, but today was a good day to test a few things as conditions have been very stable throughout the day. We were definitely able to dispel some doubts about which direction to take throughout the weekend, and yes, I think it was a very interesting Friday. Let’s call it a day Test, right?

“And tomorrow and Sunday, we’ll put everything we think is more competitive.”