Credit: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

Daniel Ricciardo led both Friday practice sessions for Red Bull in Hungary, but Mercedes and Ferrari were never too far behind, giving hopes that this weekend’s race might see three teams battling for the win. It was a scrappy day for some, however, with several crashes. Celis Jr and Giovinazzi were taking their Friday driver opportunities, but Giovinazzi managed to crash into the barriers. Romain Grosjean also crashed, making it a doubly bad start for Haas.

Jolyon Palmer’s front wing fell to pieces after he bounced over the kerbs a bit too hard in FP1, and then in FP2, he bashed into the tyre barriers to compound another bad day at the office. Pascal Wehrlein also collided with the barriers, whilst Kimi Räikkönen pulled off track complaining of lost power. The team appeared to reboot the system and after a moment or two, the Finn was back up and running again.

Ricciardo was fastest in the morning, with Räikkönen and Hamilton behind him. In the afternoon, he was trailed by Vettel and Bottas, with the gap down to just a couple of tenths.

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Credit: Sauber AG

One day after confirming they would not be going ahead with their technical partnership with Honda, the Sauber F1 Team have revealed they will continue with Ferrari power. The team currently use Ferrari’s engines, and have been partnered with the Italian manufacturer since the late 1990s. Their current partnership involves them running last year’s engine but the new deal looks set to run “the latest power unit specification as of 2018.”

Frédéric Vasseur, new team principal, who has joined the team at a turbulent time, it seems, says: “I am very pleased to confirm that we’ll continue to work with Ferrari as our engine supplier in the form of a multi-year agreement. The shared experience between Sauber and Ferrari has built a strong foundation, which will allow us to move forward swiftly and efficiently.”

Meanwhile, Honda have said the deal with Sauber fell through because once Monisha left, the squad changed their attitude towards collaboration, ie. Having a Japanese driver, or sharing facilities for development. Honda say they are in talks with other teams instead.

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Credit: Sauber AG

The Sauber team continue to go through plenty of changes as they adjust to life under new management, and now they’ve revealed that previous plans to partner with Honda for engines for the 2018 season and beyond have now been cancelled. Their statement was relatively brief, but brand new team principal Frédéric Vasseur has expanded on what has been going on:

He says: “The situation moved a lot compared to the beginning of the decision a couple of months ago, we had to take a decision and I think it was a good one… It always the target, we have to be quicker and quicker. The engine is a part of the deal, not only on the engine but also on the gearbox, potentially on the drivers, we have to consider all aspects of the discussion and I think it was the best decision.”

Vasseur himself is only a few days into the job, replacing Monisha Kaltenborn who departed last month. Having previously worked at Renault, Vasseur now has his work cut out for him steering Sauber into calmer waters.

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