Red Bull dominate first Hungarian F1 practice

Red Bull were in a league of their own in first free practice at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Friday with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber filling the top two places.

Germany's Vettel, who will be chasing his fourth pole in a row on Saturday and seventh of the season, was the quickest man on track with a best time of one minute 20.976 seconds in warm conditions, while Australian team mate Webber was 0.130 slower.

Poland's Robert Kubica, preparing for the nearest thing to a home race, was third on the timesheets for Renault but 1.096 off Vettel's time.

Red Bull have started 10 of the 11 races so far on pole position but have failed to convert that advantage in qualifying into regular race day success.

Vettel has won twice and Webber three times but McLaren are leading both Formula One championships with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

World champion Button, who took his first grand prix win with Honda in Hungary in 2006, was fourth fastest while overall leader Hamilton was 18th.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, a controversial winner in Hockenheim last weekend after team mate Felipe Massa was instructed to let him pass for victory, was seventh fastest while Massa was 12th.

Massa was back on track at the Hungaroring for the first time since he suffered near-fatal head injuries in qualifying for last year's race.

The Brazilian wasted no time in getting back, completing the first timed lap of the session.

Meanwhile, the Force India Formula One team were fined 5,000 euros ($NZD9,005) at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Friday for muddling up their tyres for the second time in two race weekends.

Stewards said in a statement that reserve driver Paul di Resta, standing in for Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi in the first practice session, had been sent out with a set of tyres reserved for Saturday and Sunday use only.

Force India were reprimanded at last weekend's German Grand Prix after they mixed up the tyres on Liuzzi's and German team mate Adrian Sutil's cars.

In that race, both men went out with a mixture of super-soft and hard tyres after their allocations were muddled up.

Sutil had said earlier at the Hungaroring that he was confident the matter had been addressed within the team.

"We spoke about, we had a meeting about it," he told reporters. "I think there are quite a few things to improve and we are aware of that.

"We hope it is never going to happen again."

- Reuters