Formula 2 leader Leclerc, already being linked with a seat at 2018 Ferrari customer Sauber, completed 98 laps, the penultimate of which was a 1:17.746 set in the dying minutes of the session. The benchmark was still 1.5s shy of Vettel’s pole time just three days earlier, but headline times are largely irrelevant during testing due to unknown fuel loads, engine modes and a host of new parts on every car.
Much of the attention of Tuesday’s test was reserved for what was happening in the paddock and pit lane, with Robert Kubica having his Renault seat-fitting and being pictured in race overalls ahead of his highly-anticipated test on Wednesday. The Polish driver will get his first experience of a 2017 car after two tests in modified Renaults as his remarkable journey towards a possible comeback continues.
Valtteri Bottas completed 155 laps of a Pirelli tyre test, conducted in his Mercedes W08. The test is Pirelli’s first of the week before heading to Barcelona with Ferrari, where it hopes to validate its plans for the final construction of the 2018 tyres (which must be signed off by September 1). GP3 driver George Russell finished fourth in the other Mercedes, with his quickest lap — set on the super-soft tyres — 1.4s off Leclerc’s benchmark. With race drivers Bottas and Lewis Hamilton testing both days of the post-Bahrain Grand Prix test earlier this year, Mercedes junior Russell will be in the car again on Wednesday, having already completed 119 laps.
Source: Ferrari youngster Charles Leclerc tops opening Hungary test
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