Hungary F2: Leclerc sets practice pace as De Vries crashes

Ferrari junior Leclerc took the lead in the early stages and improved his benchmark twice to eventually complete the session with a best lap of 1m27.516s.

His advantage over Renault's Rowland was just seven hundredths, the Briton setting his time at around the same time Leclerc did.

There were few improvements after the first 15 minutes of the running, allowing de Vries to take third despite a crash from the Dutchman.

The Rapax driver lost the rear of his car at Turn 11 and smashed into the barriers, causing a brief virtual safety car phase.

Racing Engineering's Norman Nato was fourth, just 0.23s off the pace, the top four comprised of four different teams.

Nicholas Latifi took fifth, narrowly outpacing Alex Albon and Sergio Canamasas, the Spaniard running wide at the entrance of Turn 5 at one point.

Canamasas was not the only driver struggling with conditions as Ralph Boschung and Antonio Fuoco also had brief off-track excursions during the session.

Leclerc also ran wide several times in the dying minutes, including a trip through the grass at Turn 4.

The top 10 was completed by Nobuharu Matsushita, Jordan King and Fuoco.

Practice results

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	1	Charles Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	20	1'27.516
2	9	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	19	1'27.586	0.070
3	18	Nyck de Vries	Rapax	10	1'27.674	0.158
4	20	Norman Nato	Arden International	23	1'27.746	0.230
5	10	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	19	1'27.876	0.360
6	8	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	18	1'27.954	0.438
7	19	Sergio Canamasas	Rapax	18	1'27.978	0.462
8	7	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	19	1'28.036	0.520
9	15	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	19	1'28.122	0.606
10	2	Antonio Fuoco	Prema Powerteam	20	1'28.140	0.624
11	6	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	19	1'28.259	0.743
12	5	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	20	1'28.260	0.744
13	12	Robert Visoiu	Campos Racing	20	1'28.359	0.843
14	4	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	16	1'28.407	0.891
15	11	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	18	1'28.425	0.909
16	21	Sean Gelael	Arden International	20	1'28.563	1.047
17	3	Louis Deletraz	Racing Engineering	19	1'28.645	1.129
18	17	Santino Ferrucci	Trident	22	1'28.685	1.169
19	14	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	19	1'28.886	1.370
20	16	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	20	1'29.129	1.613