Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo fastest in Hungarian Grand Prix practice as Lewis Hamilton struggles

The Australian topped the timesheets in both sessions, finishing 0.183 seconds ahead of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo was the fastest in Friday's practice (Getty)

If there was a surprise about Daniel Ricciardo’s name atop the timesheets for both of Friday's practice sessions at the Hungaroring, it wasn’t his presence, but the fact that Red Bull had successfully pulled a lot of fat from the fire with a big aerodynamic upgrade that came as a massive boost on a track where engine power is less critical to performance.

It’s rarely a surprise when the Australian breaks through, because over the years he’s made that something of a trademark.

In 2014, as team-mate Sebastian Vettel struggled with a Red Bull that lacked the poke and downforce that had made the cars with which he had won four consecutive world titles so potent, it was Ricciardo who won all three of the team’s races – in Canada, Hungary and Singapore. Last year he should have won in both Spain and Monaco; in the former fortune and team strategy favoured new team-mate Max Verstappen, in the latter a team snafu handed the race to Lewis Hamilton. That one hurt, and for once, even the toothy Ricciardo could not raise a smile. But then he picked up the Malaysian GP, after the catastrophic engine failure that cost Hamilton a fourth title.

This year, he won when others faltered in Baku. But Ricciardo isn’t one who lucks in. He’s Mr Opportunity: see it, grab it, hold on to it.

In Baku, passing both Williams cars in one beautifully smooth outbraking manoeuvre after the final safety car was a key component in a great victory.

Coming here in expectation of Red Bull finally fielding the aero package it should have had at the beginning of the year if long-serving genius Adrian Newey had not been allowed to go and work on Aston Martin’s upcoming supercar, Ricciardo had been cautiously optimistic.

“The circuit always seems to suit us,” he said, “and I like it a lot, but also we should have a pretty good car aerodynamically under us.”

He did, and he deployed it to the full to head the first session, smashing Lewis Hamilton’s fastest time from the same session a year ago on only the second lap that anyone ran in the morning. Later, in both sessions, he only narrowly failed to beat the fastest-ever lap achieved here, by Rubens Barrichello in a V10 Ferrari back in 2004, of 1m 18.436s, with 1m 18.486s in FP1 and 1m 18.455s in FP2. Such is the progress of this year’s cars.

In the afternoon he was again the man on top, as a mere 0.496s covered him, Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen, Hamilton and his own team-mate Max Verstappen. The longer distance race pace was also strong, presenting the genuine possibility of a three-way fight between six hugely competitive and aggressive racers on Sunday afternoon. He’s got the scent of opportunity again here.

"The updates seem to be working," he said. "I do feel like we have gained some grip in the car, and I wasn't complaining too much on the radio today. I do feel we have stepped in the right direction.

"We know this is a track that suits us as well, so if we can extract every bit out of the car, we may have a shot at actually fighting for big points this weekend. I am pretty happy and I genuinely feel we can stay at the pointy end tomorrow.

"Today it certainly behaved more like a B-spec car. Obviously, this morning looked strong out of the box. We were the first ones on the green track and basically we kept good pace, even the long runs were strong - and this afternoon we were able to replicate that with a hotter track.

Hamilton was philosophical about his Friday struggles (Getty)

“Today was good, it was a positive day. To replicate the same pace as this morning in the afternoon is positive. You don’t know what Ferrari and Mercedes are going to come up with and it looks like Ferrari found a bit more pace this afternoon, but we’re still ahead. We’ll see tomorrow, but it’s definitely a positive day.”

While Vettel fell back on the usual caveats that things can be skewed by things such as engine mapping and fuel loads on a Friday, while nevertheless sounding much more upbeat than he had last time out at Silverstone where Mercedes drubbed them, Hamilton was philosophical as he came down to earth with a bit of a bump.

“It wasn't the easiest start to the weekend, with the conditions very gusty. We end the day in fifth but there's clearly good pace in the car. It's super-tight between Ferrari, Red Bull and ourselves at the top of the leaderboard, so it's looking like it will be an exciting weekend. That should be good for the fans!

“There's some more work to do overnight to fine-tune the balance to get the car just where we want it and I believe the pace is in there. We just need to unlock it ahead of qualifying because every tenth is going to be crucial with three teams in the mix.”