FP1: Norris leads Piastri and Leclerc during first practice in Hungary

Lando Norris has topped the timesheets during the opening practice session at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the McLaren man leading the way from team mate Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

In the hours prior to the session getting underway, Aston Martin had announced that Fernando Alonso would miss FP1 due to a muscular injury in his back, meaning that test and reserve driver Felipe Drugovich would take his place. Further updates on Alonso’s participation for the rest of the weekend are set to follow in due course.

Elsewhere, Paul Aron would be in action at the wheel of Nico Hulkenberg’s Kick Sauber, with the Estonian making his second rookie driver appearance for the team after a previous outing at Silverstone.

Lewis Hamilton – a record eight-time winner at the Hungaroring – was the first to hit the track when the green light appeared, the Ferrari man leading the way during a busy start to the hour. While eight drivers had bolted on the hard tyres, the majority were running the mediums for their early laps.

Off the back of a points result last time out in Belgium, there seemed to be an issue for Pierre Gasly shortly into FP1, the French driver reporting “no power” in his Alpine before returning to the pits to have the problem investigated.

Norris set the pace during the opening segment of the session from Leclerc, with the other McLaren of Piastri – who claimed his first Grand Prix win at this circuit 12 months ago – following in third.

Norris’ effort of 1m 17.631s had put him one second clear of Hamilton in P8 on the timesheets, leading the seven-time World Champion to ask his race engineer where he was losing time. The reply was that this was happening in Turns 5, 8 and 9.

The other Ferrari of Leclerc, meanwhile, displaced Norris at the top shortly afterwards – only for Norris to go even faster by becoming the first to dip below the 1m 16s barrier, the Briton pumping in a time of 1m 16.837s.

“The car doesn’t feel good,” Hamilton reported as he returned to the garage towards the halfway point of the session amid a quiet spell out on track, with just the Racing Bulls and Gasly – whose earlier issue had seemingly been resolved – putting some mileage in.

Aron, meanwhile, saw his running come to a halt after heading out again, having pulled off the track with a technical issue on the Kick Sauber. The incident triggered the yellow flags and a Virtual Safety Car as the C45 was pushed through the nearby barriers.

As the session moved into its latter stages, focus for most switched to the soft tyre runs. Norris put in an eye-catching lap of 1m 16.052s, a whopping seven-tenths clear of previous pacesetter Leclerc. Piastri went fastest of all in the first sector, but ended the lap 0.142s adrift of his team mate.

Another try for Piastri moved him closer to the other McLaren, the gap dropping to just 0.019s. Amid a busy final 10 minutes – which saw several drivers experience lock-ups before most of the field switched to medium-shod runs – that time for Norris kept him on top from Piastri and Leclerc.

Isack Hadjar was a notable fourth for Racing Bulls, just ahead of Hamilton in fifth, while Haas’ Ollie Bearman placed sixth. The Mercedes pair of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell – on a weekend in which the team are reverting to a previous suspension – were seventh and eighth, with Max Verstappen in the Red Bull and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll completing the top 10.

Alex Albon wound up in 11th for Williams, followed by Haas’ Esteban Ocon (12th), Gasly (13th), Lawson (14th) and the other Williams of Carlos Sainz (15th).

Drugovich ended his return outing in P16, ahead of Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda in P17 and the Alpine of Franco Colapinto in P18. Gabriel Bortoleto – who spent the final moments of the session in the garage as his car remained on the stands – was P19 for Kick Sauber ahead of Aron, who managed just nine laps before stopping with a technical issue.

The drivers and teams will now reconvene in the paddock to examine their data and prepare for Friday’s second Free Practice session, which is due to get underway at 1700 local time.