For the first half of the 2022 season, the biggest question heading into each weekend could be boiled down to just four words: Red Bull or Ferrari?
Red Bull’s streak of six successive victories was no doubt impressive, but it did flatter the team’s true pace relative to Ferrari across those rounds. Ferrari have cost themselves a chance of victory more than once by being out-raced on the track.
However, after the first day of practice concluded in Hungary, there is little question who holds the advantage around the Hungaroring – and it is not the current runaway championship leaders.
Red Bull and Max Verstappen have been behind Ferrari on Friday many times before only to take the chequered flag come race day. But Ferrari’s advantage in Hungary has their rivals genuinely concerned this time.
Digging into the long race simulation runs the main contenders all carried out at the end of second practice, shows there is genuine reason for optimism among Ferrari fans.
Over eight representative laps on the medium compound in the final third of the hour, Carlos Sainz Jnr was the quickest of the ‘top six’ drivers with an average lap time of 1’23.624. But that pace was a mere seven hundredths of a second a lap faster than team mate Charles Leclerc, while Verstappen could manage only a 1’23.1 average pace – best part of half a second a lap slower than the Ferraris.
“I think the Ferraris will be ahead of us this weekend and it will be hard to beat them,” Verstappen frankly admitted after the end of Friday’s running. “But I think overnight we’ll try to close the gap as much as we can.”
For Ferrari, after two consecutive wins in Britain and Austria and a squandered opportunity to win a third last weekend, striking back to take some points out of their rivals in Hungary has become a necessity as they head into the summer break. The best way to achieve that would be to beat Red Bull for pace and, most promisingly, they did so on Friday without even pushing to their full potential.
“Straight out of the box in FP1, I felt very comfortable, very happy with the car balance,” said Sainz after ending the day third fastest behind his team mate.
“I think it was a very interesting Friday. Let’s call it as a test day. For tomorrow and Sunday, we will put everything that we think is more competitive.”
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