Vettel heads Bottas in wet F1 Hungarian GP second practice

Sebastian Vettel led the way in a wet second practice session for Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix, as just 13 drivers set times.

The four-times world champion, whose future continued to be subject of much speculation heading into the weekend after being linked with an Aston Martin drive for 2021, hit the top of the timesheets with half an hour to go in what proved to be a quieter-than-usual 60-minute session.

On extreme wet tyres, Vettel posted a 1m40.464 to go fastest of all and looked set to go even faster on a later run on intermediates but the German slid off the track in the final sector and subsequently  backed out of his effort.

Vettel ended the afternoon running 0.272s clear of the Mercedes of championship leader Valtteri Bottas, while McLaren’s Carlos Sainz was third-quickest, some 1.3s off the pace.

The Racing Point duo had led the way for the majority of the first half of FP2 but slipped back to P4 and P5 in the order, with Lance Stroll outpacing teammate Sergio Perez by less than a tenth.

Pierre Gasly finished the day sixth in the order after a late improvement on the full wet compound, as he headed former Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen - who endured a wild lap on his only timed-effort in his RB16 - and the Haas of Romain Grosjean.

Kimi Raikkonen completed the most amount of laps of any driver with 16 tours of the Hungaroring on his way to P9, after the Finn returned to action having sat out of FP1 for Alfa Romeo reserve and test driver Robert Kubica.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc rounded out the top-10, ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi, Lando Norris and Daniil Kvyat, who was the slowest of the 13 runners that set lap times.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton was one of seven drivers who decided to only complete installation laps to get a gauge of the  conditions.

FULL RESULTS FROM SECOND PRACTICE FOR THE 2020 F1 HUNGARIAN GP.