RML’s Yvan Muller headed team-mate Tom Chilton in the second World Touring Car Championship practice session in Hunary, as neither Honda driver pushed for a top time.
Click here for the full second practice results.
Muller headed a trio of Brits, with Chilton, Rob Huff and James Nash following. The Frenchman’s advantage over his rivals was 0.219 seconds and 0.185 seconds quicker than FP1, although he admitted that he was not reading too much into the advantage.
“The track is difficult,” said Muller. “It’s complicated to find the right set-up. I think the Hondas didn’t show their potential in this second practice. We will see in qualifying.
“We made small progress [from FP1] – we can’t make big progress. They [the Hondas] didn’t make the maximum power and didn’t use their wecond set of tyres. The practice time will be different from qualifying.”
Norbert Michelisz was the top Honda driver in fifth, ahead of Tom Coronel’s top BMW in sixth, although the difference between the positions was six tenths of a second.
Honda team-mates Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini set identical lap times in seventh and ‘eighth’ – some 0.843 seconds off Muller, although neither driver is expected to have pushed as hard as in FP1, where their lap times were seven tenths faster.
LADAs James Thompson improved substantially on his 22nd in FP1 to go ninth in FP2, improving his lap times by an impressive 1.394 seconds. Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjær completed the top ten.
Stefano D’Aste became the second driver of the day to be black-flagged for pushing the track limits too far, after Charles Kaki Ng also received the punishment in FP1.
Qualifying takes place at 14:30 CEST (13:30 GMT).