Lewis Hamilton quickest in second Hungarian GP practice

Lewis Hamilton was in impressive form as he set the pace in second practice at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The world champion was 0.351 seconds clear of Daniil Kvyat's Red Bull in second place and 0.719secs ahead of Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.

The German was fourth, behind the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was fifth with team-mate Sebastian Vettel seventh after two spins, behind Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz.

Hamilton was also quickest in the first session, external and was more than 0.7secs quicker than Rosberg on the medium tyre earlier in the session, as well as on the soft tyre on his qualifying simulation run.

The world champion looks already as if he will be tough to beat this weekend, on a race track where he has won four of the eight races in which he has competed.

"It was really good fun, but incredibly hot - hotter than a sauna," said Hamilton. "I lost over a kilo just then so it is going to be tough in the race.

"This morning I was thinking maybe this is my favourite track. It is so fun to drive - the combination of corners... It's bumpy, it feels old school."

Rosberg had a second attempt to try to close the gap to Hamilton but was already 0.6secs down when he aborted the lap after a mistake at Turn 12.

Red Bull's pace suggests that they could potentially emerge as the second quickest team behind Mercedes this weekend, as the twists and turns of the Hungaroring emphasise their strong chassis and play down the power deficit of the Renault engine.

The Red Bulls were also impressively fast on their race-simulation runs later in the session, Ricciardo in particular lapping consistently quicker than the Mercedes until he suffered an engine failure, bringing his session to a premature end.

"His race run was looking pretty competitive," team principal Christian Horner said, confirming that Ricciardo would not suffer a grid penalty because the team would fit an engine for the rest of the weekend that had already been used this season.

Ricciardo said: "Low fuel was pretty good, we can still clean it up a bit, but high fuel we're pretty much there. I won't get too excited yet, though."

BBC F1 analyst Allan McNish said: "The Red Bull pace looks genuine - I think they have stepped up into second place overall, for this race at least.

"They have a chance of the podium but it will be pretty tight on Saturday as we know Williams always run very conservatively on Fridays."

McLaren's Fernando Alonso was eighth with team-mate Jenson Button 12th, the Williams cars of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa were ninth and 10th and Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen came 11th.

It was an encouraging performance from McLaren. Their Honda engine is significantly less competitive even than the Renault but, like Red Bull, the car is reasonably competitive.

Force India did not run at all as they investigated the cause of a violent crash suffered by Sergio Perez in the first session.

The Mexican was pitched into a spin by a rear suspension failure after he ran wide over a low kerb and the team were not prepared to risk team-mate Nico Hulkenberg until they could be sure what had happened.

Practice results

Coverage details