Grand Prix of Hungary: According to Max Verstappen, Ferrari is "hard to beat" in Hungary.

Following Friday's practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen declared that he thought it would be challenging to defeat Ferrari in a dry straight-up battle.

Charles Leclerc, the Red Bull driver's championship contender, finished first, with Verstappen finishing fourth and 0.283 seconds down.

Lando Norris' out-of-position McLaren and Carlos Sainz's second Ferrari were also in front of Verstappen.

Verstappen stated, "They are a little ahead. It will be tough to beat that, but we will attempt to cut the distance.

Vettel is leaving Formula 1

Finding Hungarian GP on the BBC

Complete practice outcomes

However, rain is expected on Saturday, which might alter the level of competition.

Verstappen remarked, "(We'll) see what the weather gives us tomorrow. We can't compete in the dry, but who knows if we can in the wet.

Last month's rainy qualifying session in Canada saw Verstappen take the top spot, while Leclerc was absent from the race in Montreal due to a grid penalty for utilizing too many engine parts.

Verstappen, who has a 63-point advantage over Leclerc with 10 races left after the Monegasque lost the lead in France last weekend, said that he had always thought Red Bull would have a tough time at the Hungaroring's congested and winding track.

"Verstappen stated, "Just trying to establish a balance from high to low pace. A little tough as predicted around here. It worked a little bit better and a little bit trickier at different times. some work to be done."

Verstappen lost ground behind Leclerc by a comparable margin during both qualifying and race simulation sessions.

However, Ferrari's session wasn't without its issues, as befits their season thus far.

Leclerc experienced an engine issue at the start of his race simulation run, complaining of a lack of torque in fourth gear, and had to end it after one lap.

When instructed to pit, the man enquired, "Is there a problem?," to which his engineer replied, "We're inspecting it."

However, when they finally hit the track a few minutes later, Leclerc had a clear pace advantage over Verstappen, leading by as much as 0.3 seconds on average while both drivers were on the medium tyre. Since Sainz's first run was on soft tyres, it was impossible to compare.

Hints of improvement at McLaren

Norris downplayed the significance of being second quickest by claiming that McLaren's engine was operating at a higher power level than other cars.

But he said that the pace of the vehicle and how well it was doing compared to previous races gave him hope.

Norris remarked, "It's good. "The automobile handled really well right away, and I was at ease.

"Today's performance is a little bit of an over-show since we have the volume set up higher than other folks have.

"We're in a good place, but we're clearly not competing for spots with Ferrari and Red Bull.

Things are now a little bit better than they were, so that's a plus. But it's still just Friday, and the weather is supposed to change tomorrow.

Norris outpaced Leclerc by 0.217 seconds while Sainz outpaced Verstappen by 0.014 seconds.

Mercedes seemed to be having trouble. Their fastest driver was George Russell, who finished ninth, 0.910 seconds slower than Leclerc and ahead of Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren, Fernando Alonso of Alpine, and Sebastian Vettel of Aston Martin.

Even worse, Lewis Hamilton, who finished 11th and was 1.102 seconds behind Leclerc, complained that the vehicle was "unstable" during his race-simulation run.

What has happened at Mercedes?

Hamilton, who has eight victories in Hungary over his career, described it as "a challenging day."

He added, "The car's a bit of a problem." "It's incredible how the setup and trying to find out how we can get working swings from track to track so much.

It's a little bit loose and not performing as we would like it to. This track isn't working correctly for some reason. However, after we had it perfect, the distance (to the front) was approximately a second, the same as last week.

Russell, though, said that Mercedes had been using a software slightly different from usual in order to learn about the vehicle.

Russell said, "Definitely not our best Friday thus far." We were testing a few things with the vehicle and utilizing it as a little bit of a test session since we anticipate qualifying to be rainy and circumstances on Sunday to be very different.

"However, that is of absolutely no use for the remainder of the weekend, so even though it was a really difficult day, I believe it was a productive one.

"(We were) simply trying things to learn more about the car at the expense of trying to maximize lap time, more just trying to gather knowledge to aid us in the long run.

"Undoubtedly, we were a little bit farther away than we had anticipated. There are a few minor difficulties here and there, but tomorrow and Sunday will both be completely different days."

Aston Martin and Haas underwent the two most exciting modifications.

Aston Martin has unveiled a design that revives an end-plate style. By replacing them with a curving transition from the sides of the wing to the downforce-generating components, the 2022 regulations were created with the intention of preventing the usage of these components of the rear wing.

This was one of several adjustments made to lessen turbulence and make it simpler for vehicles to follow one another.

Another noteworthy improvement was made to the Haas, which has undergone a substantial amount of alterations and has been called the "white Ferrari" because to its resemblance to the vehicle that has dominated qualifying this year.