Alonso hopes it stays dry: 'Collected a lot of useful data'

In the second free practice, Alonso finished eighth, while Stroll drove the 12th fastest time. All this is not saying very much yet, as many teams were running different programmes, and tyres were also being used sparingly by race teams due to this weekend's new qualifying format.

"It was a mixed day with some rain and windy conditions at the Hungaroring. We lost time in FP1 and didn’t get much track time in, but it was the same for everyone. I think we maximised FP2 and collected a lot of useful data, particularly in preparation for race conditions. Generally, I am quite happy with today, and we’ll see what we can do tomorrow in qualifying with hopefully dry conditions," Alonso said after Friday.

His Canadian teammate spoke words to the same effect. "We had limited running in FP1, only recording about 10 laps due to the heavy rainfall. FP2 became busier with a few different test items to run on the AMR23. Thankfully, the rain held off, and we got a good number of laps in and worked through a decent amount of the programme. I think there are still a few changes we can make ahead of Qualifying, so we’ll work through our learnings tonight and look forward to tomorrow," Stroll said.