B-spec Aston Martin breaks down in F1 practice debut

The new Aston Martin suffered a suspected rear suspension failure in the first practice session at Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

All eyes were on Adrian Newey’s B-spec in FP1 at the Hungaroring with a nearly-completely revised car, as the team declared a 16-part upgrade on Friday morning.

But Lance Stroll’s overhauled AMR26 lasted 11 laps before what he reported as a rear suspension failure, spinning between Turns 2 and 3.

That brought Stroll’s session to a premature end with just over 20 minutes still on the clock and caused a red flag.

Team-mate Fernando Alonso had been told to keep his Aston Martin off the kerbs prior to the incident.

Alonso rejoined the track immediately when the session resumed with 17 minutes left on the clock and finished FP1 in 13th, 2.475s off the pace, having also avoided the kerbs on those soft-tyre runs.

But it was not smooth on his side either, Alonso reporting vibrations throughout the session.

What else happened in FP1

Charles Leclerc ended first practice fastest by the best part of half a second for Ferrari, though he too also hit trouble before the 60 minutes were up.

He had been fastest on the medium/hard tyre runs at the start of the session, and produced comfortably the best soft-tyre run of all with a 1m19.075s, which left him 0.484s ahead of Max Verstappen's Red Bull and more than half a second clear of Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

But Leclerc was restricted to 19 laps - Stroll aside, the lowest tally of anyone in FP1 - when he limped back to the pits inside the final 10 minutes of the session.

Replays showed a host of lights flashing on his steering wheel as he entered the Turn 13 left-hand hairpin, after which the car lost speed.

Isack Hadjar made it two Red Bulls in the top four, albeit 0.922s off Leclerc as a mixture of differing runplans, upgrades, and FP1 rookie stand-ins made it difficult to get a true read on the competitive order.

Mercedes' George Russell was the last driver within a second of Leclerc's Ferrari in fifth, with the second W17 of Fred Vesti - one of five FP1 rookies at the Hungaroring, as he took the place of championship leader Kimi Antonelli - seventh having set his best time on mediums.

He and Russell were split by Gabriel Bortoleto's Audi, who was a quarter of a second clear of eighth-placed team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.

The two Racing Bulls of Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson completed the top 10.

The other four rookies ended up towards the bottom of the order, with Leonardo Fornaroli (McLaren) and Ryo Hirakawa (Haas) 16th and 17th, and Paul Aron (Alpine) and Colton Herta (Cadillac) 19th and 20th.

Stroll ended up 21st, 4.396s off the pace, having set his best time on hard tyres.

He still ended up ahead of Carlos Sainz, who had a wild session; he was twice noted for driving erratically - for which he, as well as Verstappen, will visit the stewards - suffered a huge lock-up at Turn 1 late in the session, then after the chequered flag was shown a black and white flag for impeding.