DHL Jordan Honda carried out a straightforward Free Practice today, with Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato finishing 5th and 6th quickest respectively.

The second of the two practice sessions was littered with incidents, as drivers struggled to find the limits of the cars on the dusty Hungaroring circuit. Thankfully, there were no such problems for DHL Jordan Honda with both drivers enjoying a trouble free day and feeling positive about the cars handling and their competitive lap times.

Normally one of the hottest races of the year, today’s session was held in distinctly cooler conditions, although temperatures did rise towards the end of the afternoon. Predictably enough, the two Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello topped the time sheets, with the Williams of Ralf Schumacher third ahead of the McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen.

As usual at the Hungaroring on Friday morning, no one was particularly keen to go out on a track that is notoriously dirty, preferring to leave the job of dusting off the racing line to others. However, Minardi’s F1 rookie Anthony Davidson was straight out of the blocks and he was soon joined by Takuma, who was tackling this circuit for the first time. At the end of the session, Davidson actually managed to out-qualify team-mate Mark Webber, as they occupy the back of the 20 car “grid” together.

The lack of grip on the track caught out several drivers with Peter Sauber contemplating a heavy repair bill, after both Felipe Massa (eighth) and Nick Heidfeld (seventeenth) collided with the barriers.

At the moment, Bridgestone runners seem to have the upper hand, although hotter temperatures forecast for tomorrow might see the tyre situation close up a bit. In general, the ever changing track conditions made it difficult for teams to carry out a definitive tyre evaluation programme.

Usually on a Friday, the front running teams concentrate most of their efforts towards Sunday’s race. However, here in Budapest, a good grid position is vital, as overtaking is all but impossible here. This goes some way to explaining today’s rather jumbled looking time sheet, with some drivers preferring to spend some time running their cars in more of a qualifying trim. With the six cars from third to eighth place all within the same half second, tomorrow’s qualifying hour promises to be a thriller, especially as Williams’ pole specialist, Juan Pablo Montoya is bound to do better than his 16th place today.

GIANCARLO FISICHELLA 5th 1:17.399

“It’s been a good day.  The car looks alright with good balance on used and new tyres. Today on my best lap I had a little graining with the front tyres and I made a mistake in the last sector.  But overall it’s looking encouraging and I’m pleased to say I’m confident that we could be on the front three or four rows tomorrow.”

TAKUMA SATO 6th 1:17.598

“I’m very pleased today as we had no mechanical problems at all and we put in a lot of laps, which is good for me as it’s the first time I’ve been here in Formula One.  It’s always good to learn the circuit quickly with the car working well.  We still have some work in a couple of areas, but even so the car is going really well and our times look good so I’m feeling positive about tomorrow’s qualifying.”

GARY ANDERSON
DIRECTOR OF RACE AND TEST ENGINEERING

“I’m pleased that we were consistent today and carried forward our momentum from this morning. We concentrated mainly on evaluating the tyres for the race, and although we are looking good, we still have a bit of work to do.  The track is quite slippery and dirty at the moment and generally we're quite good in those conditions, but when the track builds up grip, sometimes it doesn’t suit us so well.  If the surface conditions don’t get too hot, we can do a good job.  The balance is reasonable and we are looking fairly strong.”