PRACTICE: Browning and Hitech TGR make fast start in Budapest

Luke Browning made a quick start to his Budapest weekend, as the Hitech TGR driver topped the timesheets of this morning’s Free Practice session.

With his final lap of the 45-minute outing, the Williams Racing Driver Academy member completed a 1:30.609 to go to P1 at the chequered flag, with Oliver Goethe and Alexander Dunne rounding out the top three.

The Red Flags were waving early on in the session following a stoppage for ART Grand Prix driver Ritomo Miyata’s at the exit of Turn 1.

Running resumed with just under 35 minutes to go, and it was AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen that set the pace on a 1:32.879.

However, that time was beaten by several drivers, as the fastest lap changed hands on several occasions. But it was eventually Goethe that led Richard Verschoor, in an MP Motorsport 1-2 with a 1:31.139.

The MP pairing continued to set the pace as Goethe improved to a 1:30.753, while Verschoor stayed in P2, 0.291s off his teammate.

Victor Martins and Dino Beganovic then went to second and third respectively, but both finished laps that were over two-and-a-half tenths off Goethe, the German having just lowered the time to beat to a 1:30.742.

As the session entered its final 10 minutes, Invicta Racing’s Roman Stanek went up to second, cutting the gap to P1 to 0.176s.

But the Czech driver was quickly pushed down to P4 as Dunne and then Browning went up to second. However, the Hitech driver was still 0.131s off Goethe’s leading time.

As the session entered into its final moments, several drivers were still improving, one of those being Browning, who completed a 1:30.609 to snatch P1 away from Goethe.

This left Goethe in second, Dunne third, Stanek fourth as Duerksen’s late improvement put him up to fifth. Martins ended up sixth ahead of Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad, with Beganovic in eighth, Verschoor ninth and Gabriele Minì 10th.

The drivers will now look over the data with their teams before returning to the track for Qualifying at 15:55 local time later today.