Sebastian Vettel leads Red Bull one-two in Hungary

Sebastian Vettel led a Red Bull one-two in the opening practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix ahead of Mark Webber as Lewis Hamilton struggled down in 13th.

It was a Red Bull one-two during FP1 at the Hungaroring as Vettel beat team-mate Mark Webber by a quarter of a second amid high track temperatures. A brake issue meant Vettel took a while to finally set a competitive time, having been told earlier in the session that he had “an anomaly with the brake system” and completed a lap without using the brakes before pitting.

Kimi Raikkonen was third – less than 0.030s slower than Webber – as Lotus showed good pace with Romain Grosjean fifth quickest behind Fernando Alonso. However, Raikkonen’s session was not without incident as he was forced to pit late on after being informed by the team that he appeared to have a right rear slow puncture.

While the top five were all covered by less than 0.4s, Sergio Perez down in ninth place was only 0.8s off the quickest time as the short circuit saw a relatively tight spread of times. McLaren appeared to continue its good form from Germany which has led Jenson Button to say he believes the team can win a race this season, with Button sixth quickest.

Mercedes spent the session trying to analyse the updated Pirelli tyres having been the only team not to test them at Silverstone due to its Young Driver Test ban, and while Nico Rosberg spent the first half hour in the garage before completing an installation lap he ended the session in eighth place. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton, however, endured a much more difficult session as he repeatedly locked up in to Turn 2 and ran wide on many occasions.

Having been ruled out of the running for the vacant Red Bull seat by Christian Horner, Jean-Eric Vergne ended the session ahead of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo but had a high-speed spin at Turn 4 which fortunately ended before the barriers.

Rodolfo Gonzalez got time in the Marussia once again as he replaced Max Chilton for FP1 and was the only driver running in the first half an hour, eventually completing 25 laps with a best time 1.4s slower than Jules Bianchi.