Euroformula leader Leon comfortably quickest in Hungaroring practice

Photo: Ida Wood

Euroformula points leader Noel Leon was comfortably fastest in Friday free practice at the Hungaroring.

In FP1 it was BVM Racing’s Francesco Simonazzi who was the driver to beat at first, with Noda Racing’s Juju Noda holding second place through the first quarter of the 40-minute session.

Leon then set a 1m37.351s to go fastest, and improved to 1m36.775s to stay ahead as Benjamin Berta jumped up to second place, before Simonazzi found more pace to return to the top of the order.

He remained there for five minutes before Bryce Aron became the new pacesetter, and his 1m36.291s laptime went unbeaten for almost 10 minutes. Simonazzi snuck in a 1m36.230s before red flags came out as Noda came to a stop in sector one, and then the rest of the session was cut.

That meant Simonazzi finished on top ahead of Aron and Berta, with Leon fourth. A transponder fault, which was not rectified for FP2, meant NV Racing’s Paolo Brajnik had none of his laptimes counted.

CryptoTower Racing Team driver Josh Mason had his fastest lap removed due to exceeding track limits on more than three occassions during the session.

Leon was on top at the start and end of FP2, but it was Noda who was setting the pace most of the time between those two points.

Although Noda did not improve in the final 12 minutes, and there was a lot of drivers who did late on, she finished practice second overall and 0.471 seconds off Leon’s benchmark 1m35.342s lap.

Despite having laps deleted again, Mason concluded the session in third place, with Simonazzi and Aron in fourth and fifth after setting their fastest laps at the end.

All 10 of the drivers were faster in FP2 than in FP1.

Free practice results