Aron Canet entered Friday with the objective of improving his riding style aboard his Elf Marc VDS Racing Team package and placed 15th, while Deniz Öncü was 24th. 

The 4.08km Balaton Park Circuit, situated 92km to the south west of Budapest, hosts just the second Hungarian Grand Prix of the 21st century this weekend.

Conditions were overcast, cool and blustery in Hungary on Friday with the afternoon Practice session being held in ambient temperatures of 22 degrees.

Both Aron and Deniz will have 30 minutes to tweak their respective set-ups in tomorrow morning’s FP2 session, which starts at 9:25 local time, before qualifying gets underway at 13:40.

Aron Canet, 15th – 1’41.124 

After a tough weekend in Italy, Aron and his team decided to alter their strategy for this weekend. The Spaniard is attempting to put as many laps on the board as he continues adapting to his riding style to the Boscoscuro chassis.

That was reflected in FP1, when Aron posted 18 laps and finished 14th, just 0.7s back of first place. He repeated that feat in the afternoon, doing 18 laps again in Practice.

The 26-year old came very close to a place inside the top 14 in the afternoon, and ultimately missed out by just over 0.1s. Still, Aron feels he made good progress with his riding style through the day.

“We did a step forward today. I. understood many things when riding by myself”

Aron’s comments:

“The main objective was to be in Q2 tomorrow but another was to do something we didn’t quite manage in Mugello. That was doing a lot of laps, testing a lot of things, and working on my riding style. We’re still lacking a lot of experience with this package and it’s important I build up and get more kilometres under my belt. I think we did a step forward today. I. understood many things when riding by myself. This was really important. Let’s see tomorrow if we can make some tweaks to the bike. But if not, I’m fully focussed on myself and finding a way to ride this Boscoscuro chassis in a better way. We’re working really hard to get closer to the front in each session, and I’m confident we’re getting there.” 

Deniz Öncü, 24th – 1’41.519 

After missing last year’s event in Hungary through injury, Deniz spent FP1 getting up to speed around the tight, technical track. Finishing 22nd, he put 20 laps on the board – only one rider did more.

Deniz put an eleven-lap run together at the start of Practice. Once in the groove, the 22-year old was able to reel off a succession of laps in the 1’42s, which was reasonable pace.

Deniz then did one late time attack to climb the order. His fastest time came on his penultimate lap, and was an improvement of over 1s when compared to his personal best in FP1.

“I was working a lot on the track, trying to do as many laps as possible”

Deniz’s comments:

“We’ve finished the first day in Balaton. This was our first time riding at this track due to my injury last year. Anyway, I was working a lot on the track, trying to do as many laps as possible and to get to know the circuit. We know what the problem is at the moment which is preventing me from going faster. We have a decent idea on how to fix it. Now we’ll try to analyse the data and everything this afternoon and improve our setting for tomorrow.”