Russell leads FP1 while Verstappen suffers reliability issue

The pair of Silver Arrows flattered to deceive a little by heading out on soft tyres in the final 15 minutes of the session to feel the benefit of track evolution and duly climb to the top.

Budapest polesitter and team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s progress shuffled Carlos Sainz to third while Lando Norris led Daniel Ricciardo as the McLaren’s ran clear of Charles Leclerc.

The Aston Martins headed out first as part of a frantic opening to the hour as all bar Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly emerged, and only Fernando Alonso opted against the hard tyres.

Unsurprisingly, on the quicker mediums Alonso soon set the pace with a 1m17.662s before Verstappen found a further four tenths on the slower white-walled rubber moments later.

After Mick Schumacher locked the front-right through the Turn 11 chicane to career over the gravel despite a very slow entry speed, the pacesetters hit similar misfortune.

Alonso was another to overcook Turn 11 before Verstappen pulled up with car trouble.

No sooner had Verstappen moved to the top of the leaderboard with his 1m14.714s effort on hard tyres, to sit pretty by a little over half a second, his RB18 ground to a halt.

Double waved yellows morphed into a virtual safety car and then a full red flag after 10 minutes when the gearbox seemed to fail on the exit of Turn 2 with a puff of smoke.

The home hero coasted to a stop on the exit of Turn 4 before vacating the car that had gained a new power unit for the Belgian Grand Prix last time out, which Verstappen won.

Notably, the Red Bull mechanics had been given permission to break a seal to change the main shaft locking insert on Verstappen’s gearbox earlier during Friday morning.

It took the better part of 10 minutes for the session to resume but during the interval, Schumacher was investigated and cleared for leaving the pit lane under the red flag.

With 40 minutes left on the clock, Hamilton – running an older powertrain while the engine from his Spa crash with Alonso is recovered – switched to softs and led the field back out.

But as he sat in 15th with a 1m16.937s on the new rubber, Alonso blasted back to the top on the red-walled Pirellis courtesy of a 1m13.635s flier before Norris dropped to a 1m12.929s.

The papaya McLaren briefly enjoyed its time in the sun before, with 33 minutes to go, Sainz rocketed to the top aboard his F1-75, the Spaniard lowering the benchmark to 1m12.845s.

Max…