After finishing fifth in the morning, the Dutchman continued his excellent form. Muñoz, in sixteenth place, narrowly missed out on Q2.

Friday was a great opening day for Collin Veijer at Balaton Park, where he achieved fifth in the morning and seventh in the afternoon at the Hungarian Grand Prix, demonstrating his great form with the best Friday results as a Moto2 rider. Stand-in teammate Daniel Muñoz also had a positive day at the new venue on the World Championship calendar, improving session after session and coming within a tenth of a second of a place in Q2.

The Moto2 riders were given a helping hand in finding the correct line by the MotoE and Moto3 competitors, who had laid down rubber in their morning sessions.

Veijer’s adaptation was instantaneous, as he moved into the Top 4 from his third flying lap. The Dutchman, both riding alone and with a tow from other riders, put in a solid first stint with very good pace, carrying over his recent strong form. After returning to the pits, he remained near the top of the leaderboard, improving enough in the closing moments to maintain fifth place thanks to a 1:41.955. It was his best ever result in a practice session in the intermediate class. Veijer was the rider with the most laps completed at Balaton Park in the session, with a total of 21. Muñoz put in two fewer laps, starting in the middle of the standings and moving up to 12th just past the halfway point. However, in the final stretch, he focused on continuing to work on his pace, rather than a Time Attack, which ultimately relegated him to 22nd place with a best lap of 1:42.766.

Practice saw all the intermediate class riders quickly match or improve their morning times, in a session some 13ºC warmer in terms of track temperatures and with much less humidity than FP1.

Unlike the first session, Veijer took more than ten minutes to move into the Q2 positions, but once he did, he would not relinquish the spot. Up in the Top 5, he was able to complete a run focused on pace and on getting his bike ready for Sunday’s race. From there, in the final quarter-hour, Veijer took another step forward, moving into the Top 3 and improving his best time of the day by 2 tenths. Ultimately, despite his final marker of 1:41.568, he had to settle for seventh place in a very close session, after riding 19 laps of Balaton Park. Muñoz prioritised continuing to work on his adaptation to the track and to his bike, with which he has only had two race weekends so far. However, the Spanish rider remained 17th during the first section of Practice, not far from the Top 14. He went on to put together a personal best lap that temporarily placed him in the Top 10, but -like his teammate- a later general improvement didn’t allow him to maintain his position. He moved down to 16th, missing out on Q2 by less than a tenth. His final time of 1:41.847, following 20 laps, placed him just over half a second off the summit.

After a great first day, Saturday’s Q2 will start at 2:05 PM (local time) for Veijer. Muñoz will attempt to join him, but will have to enter Q1 at 1:40 PM first. In the morning, both will take part in Free Practice 2 at 9:25 AM.

Practice Results
1. Diogo Moreira (Kalex) | 1:41:213
2. Filip Salac (Boscoscuro) | 1:41.385 (+0.172)
3. Manuel Gonzalez (Kalex) | 1:41.389 (+0.176)
4. Adrian Huertas (Kalex) | 1:41.399 (+0.186)
5. Alonso Lopez (Boscoscuro) | 1:41.425 (+0.212)
7. Collin Veijer (Red Bull KTM Ajo) | 1:41.568 (+0.355)
16. Daniel Muñoz (Red Bull KTM Ajo) | 1:41.847 (+0.624)

#95 COLLIN VEIJER

“Very happy about today. This morning we gained a lot of confidence and I felt really good on track. Balaton Park is a little bit small, but I enjoyed myself a lot because the layout is very interesting and very different to the majority of tracks on the calendar -so it’s nice to be here. The feeling is quite good, so we’ll try to improve it tomorrow. We know in which areas we can do better, so let’s see what we’re capable on the second day -and on the rest of the weekend.”

#17 DANIEL MUÑOZ

“It was a different kind of day today, as we had to get to know the track from scratch in every sense. The overall feeling was positive, although we still needed to put together a perfect lap to make it into Q2. Nevertheless, I’m very happy with the work the entire team are doing, so now it’s time to put the finishing touches to the job so we can fight for a spot in Q2 tomorrow -and battle against the best for a good grid position.”