McLaren driver Lando Norris set the pace during Saturday’s third practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, leading the way from Ferrari rival Lewis Hamilton and the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli.
Norris worked his way down to a best time of 1m 17.939s amid typically hot conditions at the Hungaroring, finishing just over a tenth up on Hamilton and Antonelli – as drivers geared up for Qualifying later today.
When the session kicked off at 1230 local time, Alpine’s Franco Colapinto was the first man to head out on track, having lost valuable running on Friday when he ran wide at the final corner and slid into the barriers – causing plenty of car damage.
Lance Stroll also emerged from the pits early on, after spinning out of FP1 with a suspension issue and then missing the entirety of FP2, as the Canadian looked to join team mate Fernando Alonso in gaining an understanding of the heavily updated Aston Martin.
While more cars gradually filtered out, one driver going nowhere was Arvid Lindblad, whose Racing Bulls machine sat up on jacks amid an apparent power unit issue – the team having broken the paddock curfew overnight to fix a similar problem on Liam Lawson’s car.
Around a third of the way into the session, with the likes of Antonelli, George Russell and Max Verstappen yet to appear, Norris led the way for McLaren via a 1m 19.062s on soft tyres, a couple of tenths quicker than Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar.
However, just as the timesheets were lighting up with more personal best laps, Sergio Perez hit trouble exiting the pit lane, ground to a halt on the approach to Turn 2 and brought out the red flags. “I lost the engine; I had a massive brake,” said the Cadillac driver. “It looks like the brakes are on fire at the back.”
With the track cleared and Perez transported back to the pits, the FP3 action resumed at 1256, leaving just over half an hour for drivers to pick up their practice programmes and make some final observations ahead of the all-important Qualifying hour.
Antonelli, Russell and Verstappen finally hit the track at this point, with the Briton’s first lap putting him second to Norris, the Dutchman going fifth behind team mate Hadjar and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, and the Italian provisionally slotting into sixth before losing his lap time for exceeding track limits.
It was all change a few minutes later, though, when Hamilton pumped in a 1m 19.053s to go P1 for the Scuderia, team mate Leclerc went even faster on a 1m 18.668s, and Antonelli then slotted between the pair of them – before requesting a check of his Mercedes’ floor, which had thumped the Turn 4 kerb.
Heading into the final 15 minutes of the session, championship leader Antonelli made another move, producing a time of 1m 18.254s and taking over at the top, only for Norris and his upgraded McLaren to edge in front again with a 1m 18.206s.
Hamilton had looked set to make it a practice clean sweep for Ferrari by improving to a 1m 18.056s, but Norris went again – and this time avoided a slide through the final corner – to wind up with an eye-catching benchmark time of 1m 17.939s.
Antonelli placed third, ahead of Leclerc and Oscar Piastri, with Russell back in sixth (six-tenths off the pace), and the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Hadjar taking P7 and P8 respectively – the latter reporting an “undriveable” experience late on.
Lawson placed an encouraging ninth for Racing Bulls, followed by the Audis of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto, while the other VCARB 03 of Lindblad made it out in the closing stages to split the Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Colapinto.
Haas drivers Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman were next up, as the updated Aston Martins of Alonso and Stroll (who at one stage came close to making contact), Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas and Williams pair Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon brought up the rear, ahead of the sidelined Perez.
