FP3 REPORT | Hamilton is the fastest ahead of the two Red Bulls in Hungary

Lewis Hamilton has topped FP3 at the Hungaroring, setting a 1:17.811 on the fastest available compound. The top 3 was rounded out by the two Red Bulls, in the order of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

It was a tricky session for the drivers, as they had to get up to speed on each tyre compound ahead of today’s different, experimental qualifying format. While the teams opted for either soft or mediums on the first runs, after that, everyone decided to choose to practice on different compounds and tried to also run race simulations at the same time.

The wind also played a crucial factor, as many drivers, such as Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz went wide in Turn 2, while Charles Leclerc, Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso all made mistakes exiting the last turn.

The results are not completely indicative because only 10 drivers will have the chance to use the soft tyres in Q3, but Lewis Hamilton was the fastest on this compound ahead of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. Nico Hülkenberg finished in P4, Lando Norris finished in P5 on mediums. George Russell's fastest time was worse than his teammate's and earned him P6, while the two Ferraris rounded off the Top 8.

At the end of the session, Daniel Ricciardo got into a bit of a trouble, and had to break hard to avoid contact with Guanyu Zhou while practicing a race start exiting the pit lane.

The first stints

During their first runs, the potential frontrunners opted for the mediums, with Verstappen leading Sergio Perez by 0.080 seconds. Charles Leclerc was quicker than Lewis Hamilton, but George Russell could jump the Ferrari driver on his first run.

Out of the drivers who chose the softs in their first stints, Oscar Piastri was the fastest ahead of Esteban Ocon and his teammate Lando Norris, but they were almost half a tenth behind Verstappen. The two Alfa Romeos were surprisingly fast on the softs at the beginning of the session, as both Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou got up to P2 and P3 respectively.