Josef Kral set the fastest time in free practice ahead of qualifying for round 17 of the GP2 Series at the Hungaroring on Friday morning.

Addax racer Kral, who has failed to score a point all season with last year's teams' championship-winner, repeated his feat of setting fastest time in practice from Barcelona back in May. His 1m29.573s was 0.159secs faster than Racing Engineering's Fabio Leimer, and both of these times were set just after the halfway point of the session.

James Calado, who was the pacesetter until then, was third fastest for Lotus, just over a quarter of a second down on Kral's time. Jolyon Palmer set a last-gasp flyer to leap to fourth in his iSport-run machine.

Caterham's Giedo van der Garde was fifth-fastest, ahead of iSport's Marcus Ericsson. Championship contender Davide Valsecchi, whose early-season form domination has evaporated in recent races with just three point-scoring finishes in the last seven events, was seventh quickest for DAMS.

Victor Guerin was a surprise eighth-fastest for Ocean, but his running was disrupted when his head-protection wrap-around appeared to fall off his car. Recent form men Esteban Gutierrez (Lotus) and Johnny Cecotto Jr (Addax) were ninth and 11th respectively.

Points leader Luiz Razia was only 12th fastest in his Arden machine.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time       Gap
 1.  Josef Kral           Addax               1m29.573s
 2.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering  1m29.732s  + 0.159s
 3.  James Calado         Lotus               1m29.837s  + 0.264s
 4.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport              1m29.916s  + 0.343s
 5.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham            1m29.943s  + 0.370s
 6.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport              1m29.961s  + 0.388s
 7.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                1m30.053s  + 0.480s
 8.  Victor Guerin        Ocean               1m30.093s  + 0.520s
 9.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus               1m30.131s  + 0.558s
10.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident             1m30.226s  + 0.653s
11.  Johnny Cecotto Jr    Addax               1m30.252s  + 0.679s
12.  Luiz Razia           Arden               1m30.367s  + 0.794s
13.  Felipe Nasr          DAMS                1m30.373s  + 0.800s
14.  Max Chilton          Carlin              1m30.487s  + 0.914s
15.  Nigel Melker         Ocean               1m30.505s  + 0.932s
16.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering  1m30.538s  + 0.965s
17.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni              1m30.555s  + 0.982s
18.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin              1m30.581s  + 1.008s
19.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham            1m30.683s  + 1.110s
20.  Stefano Coletti      Coloni              1m30.744s  + 1.171s
21.  Sergio Canamasas     Lazarus             1m30.813s  + 1.240s
22.  Simon Trummer        Arden               1m30.964s  + 1.391s
23.  Daniel de Jong       Rapax               1m31.192s  + 1.619s
24.  Julian Leal          Trident             1m31.707s  + 2.134s
25.  Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax               1m32.211s  + 2.638s
26.  Giancarlo Serenelli  Lazarus             1m34.204s  + 4.631s