Hamilton, who recovered from a crash early in Friday’s second practice, was fourth fastest.
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At the halfway stage of the campaign Rosberg holds a one point advantage over his teammate going into Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
The clarification came after Nico Rosberg, who had help from Mercedes in getting around gearbox gremlins at this month’s British Grand Prix, was found to be in breach of the rule barring teams from giving drivers assistance over the radio.
Heading into the 11th round of the championship – the penultimate grand prix before Formula One’s summer break – Mercedes had warned that the low-speed nature of the Hungaroring would suit Red Bull.
Mercedes has promising junior drivers Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon on its books, but both will have to cool their ambitions of driving for the Silver Arrows for the time being. Hamilton was able to drive the auto back to the pit lane and later returned to the team garage after a medical checkup.
He underwent a precautionary check at the medical centre and appeared to be fine, but his auto had to be fully stripped and checked, ruling him out of the rest of the session. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be in such a strong position tomorrow but it’s very positive”.
“It’s the same thing right now as it would be if Fernando was in the vehicle with me, a lot of the other great drivers, we’d be having the same thing”, he said on Thursday.
The German, who clocked a best lap of one minute and 20.435 seconds, was half a second faster than Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo in the second place.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was third in the order, while Hamilton’s best lap, set in the opening moments of the second session, was still good enough for fifth. “The most important thing is that Lewis was unharmed despite the impact”. The Briton was left with suspension and bodywork damage, meaning he was unable to take part in the remainder of the session.
Several drivers were adjudged to have abused track limits over the course of the session. Hamilton signed a new three-year deal last season.
Another post, a photograph of the contract, was accompanied by the message: “signed, sealed, delivered”.
“We had some fears and they’ve not really been founded today”, Clear said.
“Not much different. It might be more aggressive, it might be easier, it might be smoother, or less smooth”. So now we’re trying this and I think it’s okay. “We can not ask our personnel to maintain the level of activity”. On the other hand we must look towards the next generation. It was the human element in a sport that is arguable very complicated and technical.
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Rosberg joined Mercedes AMG Petronas in 2010 and leads the championship with five wins and 168 points. Mercedes has won nine of the first 10 races this season and 41 of the last 48.
