World championship leader Nico Rosberg limbered up for qualifying by setting the fastest time for Mercedes in Saturday’s final practice session for the Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix.
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But an improvement from Red Bull’s Verstappen a few minutes later nearly saw Rosberg lose his stop at the top of the timesheets.
Hamilton managed to limp back to his Mercedes garage, but he sustained damage to the left-hand side of his auto, and was subsequently ruled out for the remainder of the second practice session after completing only four laps.
Heading into this weekend’s Hungarian GP, Rosberg leads Hamilton, the reigning world champion, by a single point in the Drivers’ Championship.
Sebastian Vettel spent plenty of time facing the wrong way as his Ferrari struggled to get to grips with the new asphalt in Hungary.
“Fortunately, I got a good feel for it in the few laps that I did have and the pace is clearly there, so hopefully tomorrow I can make up for the time lost today during the morning session and come back strongly in qualifying”. I could have probably gone out again, but if the wishbones failed we would have looked silly.
“It is frustrating, and I am a little bit disappointed with myself but these things happen”.
Despite their on-track clashes in Spain and Austria costing the team almost 50 constructors’ points and prompting Toto Wolff to issue a “final warning” over such incidents, Mercedes had always stressed they expected the Rosberg-Hamilton partnership to continue into 2017.
While Hamilton is bidding to become the first driver to win on five occasions here, the Hungaroring has not been kind to Rosberg.
But the German, whose Mercedes contract could be worth up to £36million over two seasons, will be buoyed by his new deal, promising start to the weekend and Hamilton’s error.
“Special moment for me, of course, this moment of signing that piece of paper”, Rosberg said in a second video posted on social media by Mercedes.
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The team said before the British Grand Prix earlier this month, however, that they would not impose “team orders” on their drivers. “You don’t like getting beaten but I think at the same time… if it’s just he was better on that day or he worked better with the engineers and he set the auto up better, then you just have to take it on the chin and move forward”.
