Red Bull and Ferrari, who trailed Mercedes by nearly two seconds earlier in the day, closed the gap slightly with Daniel Ricciardo 0.6s behind Rosberg’s benchmark on the same compound, while Sebastian Vettel was three tenths behind his former teammate in third.
Advertisement
Recent reports had suggested Rosberg would be leaving the Silver Arrows at the end of the current season after enduring a fractured relationship with team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
The triple world champion trails Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg by just one point after a sensational fourth win of the season two weeks ago in his home British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
After topping the second practice session of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Championship leader Nico Rosberg was delighted at Mercedes’ performance throughout the day. “I think the new [track surface] suits us, so I’m optimistic”.
“Lewis was caught out by one of the new, unpainted kerbs… resulting in quite a heavy impact with the barriers”, said Paddy Lowe, the technical executive director for Mercedes.
The pair have dominated proceedings this season and won nine of the opening 10 races so far.
Hamilton’s accident was the only high-profile incident of the session, run in hot conditions with track temperatures in the forties.
The 31-year-old eventually managed to extricate himself and slowly trundled back to the garage, with Mercedes confirming his session was over as the vehicle needed to be stripped and checked for internal damage.
The German joined the team at the end of 2009 and has been runner-up in the championship for the past two seasons.
“Those new white kerbs, I just touched them and “whoooah” they sent me flying”, Hamilton told reporters.
A Mercedes spokesman said the vehicle would be repaired overnight but even so the accident will be a blow as the champion bids to take the lead in the title chase for the first time this year.
Raikkonen was sixth on 1m 22.058s, as Alonso and Button also used the supersofts to put their McLarens seventh and eighth again, on 1m 22.328s and 1m 22.387s respectively.
Advertisement
He added: “I think the front-wing endplate might have been damaged, the sidepod wing maybe – not a lot of damage”. That is the fact which I am focussing on, but as I’ve said before, in general, I don’t look at the big picture.
