Haas
New signing Bearman was in the cockpit for FP1 in place of Hulkenberg, the German getting to spend an extra hour in the air conditioning on a sweltering Friday in Hungary. Beaman gave a good account of himself in a trouble-free hour of running, but Magnussen wasn’t having quite such a serene time, locking up and complaining about his brakes to boot. In FP2, Magnussen looked much more content and wound up with an impressive lap in the top 10, whereas it took Hulkenberg a little longer to get going out there.
Nico Hulkenberg – FP2: 1:18.791, P15
“Only FP2 in the car for me today, but the session went okay. You’re always a little bit behind and tight on time, and the red flag cut things a bit short, but it is what it is. The feeling in the car wasn’t too bad from the get-go, so that’s the best thing to take away. We’re all pretty close together again and we know overtaking is difficult around here, so track position is king tomorrow.”
Oliver Bearman – FP1: 1:20.371, P20
“It’s always good fun being back in the car for FP1 with the team. They were very interesting conditions, the hottest track I’ve ever experienced, and that made it quite tough from inside the car, and not just for me, but for the tires as well. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and can’t wait for the next one although that’s a long time away.”
Kevin Magnussen – FP1: 1:20.295, P19; FP2: 1:18.315, P6
“In FP1 we weren’t very quick but we seemed to pick up the pace for FP2. The track was slightly cooler so maybe that had an impact – I’m not sure – but we were a lot more competitive and hopefully we can keep that for tomorrow. We’re doing our thing, it’s been going well lately, and we want to keep it going. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t keep the form however the field is so tight that one weekend you’re going to be up there and another weekend perhaps not. We’ve got to make the best of it when we have the pace to score points.”
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal
“Kevin had a pretty severe brake issue in FP1, so he had a bit of damage on the car and hence we couldn’t get much information from that session. Ollie did a decent job in FP1. It was pretty difficult with track temperature being 58 degrees and we ran medium and soft tires, but on both of them Ollie just got one lap. There was very little opportunity for him to explore the car that session but considering that, he did a good job again. In FP2, things were a bit better as Kevin was happier with the car, and although his brakes still weren’t great, his low-fuel lap time was decent. Nico could’ve done something very similar I think but he had traffic on his flying lap. On high-fuel, as you can see, everyone was struggling with degradation so we also have some work to do there.”
