Report: Over 100 laps recorded across Friday practice in Hungary
Alex and Carlos' Hungarian GP weekends begin at the Hungaroring
Published
24 JUL 2026
Est. reading time
3 min
Our 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix weekend is underway, with Atlassian Williams F1 Team recording 115 laps over the two hours of running.
A lot of the Friday chatter was dominated by just how low grip the Hungaroring proved to be across the sessions, and both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz suffered big first-corner lock-ups during FP1.
Both practice hours were affected by a red flag apiece, and FP1's came midway through the session when Lance Stroll spun in the opening sector after an issue, pulling over at the side of the track.
The red flag halted Carlos' first soft tyre run, whilst his second was aborted for a slow-moving Alpine on the racing line before his third saw one of the aforementioned lock-ups.
As a result, our Spanish racer never got a lap in on the softs and ended the opening hour in P22 with a best of 1:23.734. Alex was able to get a soft tyre lap in, ending the session in P15 after a 1:21.819.
Into FP2 and both drivers began on the hard tyre for the first time this weekend, getting some valuable data in ahead of Sunday. Our duo went on to record 64 laps across the hour.
Softs were bolted on midway through for qualifying runs, but a red flag was shown when Franco Colapinto went off line at the final corner and spun into the tyre wall.
Alex ended the hour in P16 thanks to a 1:20.973, with Carlos' 1:21.426 placing him in P17 at the end of FP2, providing plenty for us to fine-tune heading into qualifying and Sunday's Grand Prix.
Richard Frith, Head of Performance Systems:
“A productive day today, with a lot of the usual challenges that come with this track. The wind always makes things difficult here and tyre management is a key focus. Getting rear-end stability through the high-speed corners is tricky, and it's hard to stop the rear tyres overheating while still getting the front tyres into a good window, so it’s something we’re working to find a good compromise on.
“That said, we were more consistent today than we were at Spa, and we made good progress within the session. There's still a bit to do tonight and time left on the table before qualifying. Aston Martin's upgrades add an extra challenge for us tomorrow, so we'll be going through the data carefully, particularly looking at the floor tests we ran on Carlos’ car to see if there's anything more we can find overnight."
Alex Albon:
“It was tough conditions out there today. We made some good steps forward between sessions and our low-fuel pace looks reasonable, but between the temperature and the tarmac, it's hard to separate what's setup-related and what's due to the change in conditions. Aston have made a big step this weekend - they're the ones we need to try to beat, and that's going to make Q1 challenging. We've still got some work to do overnight to maximise the opportunities tomorrow.
Carlos Sainz:
“Tricky Friday in Hungary as expected. This track exposes our main weaknesses, and we are struggling to find the right balance in the car. We’ll use the weekend to explore different setup directions and see how we can improve at tracks like this where we know we’re lacking. The rest of this weekend will be about collecting valuable data and extracting as much performance as we can from this package.
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