Max Verstappen 'loses his rag' as Lando Norris makes Oscar Piastri suffer

Max Verstappen endured a miserable second practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix that was again dominated by McLaren's Lando Norris.

The British driver finished a staggering three-tenths of a second faster than team-mate Oscar Piastri to provide himself with a solid platform in his bid to reduce the 16-point gap at the top of the drivers' standings to the Australian in their fight for the F1 drivers' championship.

Norris' leading lap of 1:15.624s during the qualifying simulation runs was 0.291s ahead of Piastri, and just four-tenths of a second slower than his pole position from a year ago.

There was a moment of consternation between the duo late on. Fresh out of the pits, Norris went on to lock up heavily into Turn 1. At the same time, Piastri was sweeping through, narrowly avoiding a collision.

Nearly disaster for McLaren, as Norris locks up heavily at Turn 1 fresh out of the pits. 

But Piastri is sweeping through Turn 1 at that very moment. He does well to avoid a collision!

As for Verstappen, the four-time F1 champion finished a miserable 14th, declaring the balance of his car to be "on ice" early in the session, from which he continued to struggle despite set-up changes throughout, notably on a new front wing for this race.

Verstappen later described his RB21 as "undriveable" due to its lack of balance. 

To add insult to injury, Verstappen faces a visit to the race stewards as he is under investigation for a bizarre infringement midway through the session when he threw a rag, or a towel, out of the cockpit of his car whilst on track.

He and a team representative have been summoned to answer a charge of allegedly being released in an unsafe condition.

It was a traditional FP2, with the overwhelming majority of drivers on the opening laps - bar Haas' Oliver Bearman and Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto - on the medium tyres.

From Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc's pacesetter of 1:17.143s, the duel between Norris and Piastri then unfolded. Norris was the first to dip below 77 seconds, posting a 1:16.916s, only for Piastri to comfortably shave two tenths of a second off that.

Norris, though, then purpled the first two sectors en route to surging back ahead by 0.172s.

With Verstappen languishing a second off the pace in the middle of the timesheet, the four-time F1 champion was asked by race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase for the main balance limitation of his RB21, to which he replied: "It's front and rear. It's just like driving on ice."

After 25 minutes, the first of the qualifying simulation runs started, initiated by Williams' Carlos Sainz, who elevated himself up to third fastest, but still 0.349s adrift of Norris, who had headed the medium-tyre running over Piastri, followed by Leclerc and Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, and Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar.

On the softs, Aston Martin's Lance Stroll elevated himself up to P1 with a 1:16.221s.

On his first flying lap, a small error from Norris out of Turn 3 forced him to back out, but doing so early enough in the lap that it allowed him to build over the remainder and push again.

Over the intervening period, Piastri gave Norris a target to aim for with a lap of 1:15.915s, and scoring a bullseye as the Briton made no mistake, smashing the Australian's time by almost three tenths of a second, which proved to be the quickest.

Norris, though, still proved himself fallible to mistakes as on another push lap, he made a major error on the approach to the final sweeping curve, putting his left-rear tyre on the grass, leading to him fighting to keep control of the car and being forced to take to the run-off area.

The session culminated in a McLaren one-two, with Norris ahead in both. It is only the third time this season a driver has topped both of Friday's sessions. On the other two occasions, Piastri in Imola, and Leclerc in Monaco, neither driver went on to win the grand prix.

Leclerc again finished best of the rest, 0.399s behind Norris, followed by the Aston Martin duo of Stroll and Fernando Alonso, the latter back in his car after skipping FP1 with a muscle injury in his back.

Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton was sixth fastest, seven-tenths down, and three-tenths behind Leclerc.

Mercedes duo George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were seventh and 10th, the latter 0.896s down, sandwiching Hadjar and Yuki Tsunoda in his Red Bull. It was a rare session for the Japanese in finishing ahead of Verstappen.

At the rear was Alpine's Franco Colapinto, 1.535s adrift.