Red Bulls fly in Hungary (From The Oxford Times)

Red Bulls fly in Hungary

12:40pm Friday 30th July 2010 in

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The Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber blew away the field in first practice ahead of Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix.

Even accounting for different fuel strategies that can result in a high variance in times, the duo were highly impressive as they seek their 11th pole from 12 races and sixth race victory.

Come the end of the 90 minutes around the Hungaroring, that often carries the description of being tight, twisty, as well as dusty due its lack of use over the year, Vettel finished 0.130 secs ahead of Webber with a lap time of minute 20.976secs.

Their nearest challenger was Enstone-based Renault F1 team's Robert Kubica who was just over a second adrift of Vettel, with reigning world champion Jenson Button fourth in his McLaren, almost another four tenths of a second back.

The remainder of the top ten contained a mix of drivers as Button was followed by the Grove-based Williams of Rubens Barrichello and the Sauber of Pedro de la Rosa, as high as the Spaniard has figured all year.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, in the spotlight this week in relation to the team orders controversy that helped him win the German Grand Prix on Sunday, was seventh, 1.796secs down.

The Brackley-based Mercedes team duo of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher followed closely behind, separated by just 0.115secs, with Nico Hulkenberg rounding out the top ten in his Williams, the only other driver to finish within two seconds of Vettel.

Adrian Sutil, in a Silverstone-built Force India sporting the team's own version of the performance-enhancing exhaust blown diffuser, was 11th. The German was half a second up on team-mate and reserve Paul di Resta, driving a car in normal trim as the engineers looked at the comparison data.

In 12th was Felipe Massa, on his first day back at the track where just over a year ago he was involved in a near-fatal accident.

Unusually, albeit clearly on heavy fuel, Lewis Hamilton found himself down amongst the smaller teams in 18th place in his McLaren, three seconds behind Vettel.