Hamilton heads hot final Hungary practice ahead of Red Bull pair

Lewis Hamilton heads into qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix after setting the fastest time in final practice ahead of both Red Bull drivers.

The Mercedes driver was the only competitor to break under the 1’18s barrier to end final practice a quarter-of-a-second quicker than Max Verstappen, with Sergio Perez almost matching his team mate in third.

After drivers only enjoyed a single hour of dry running on Friday, teams would have been relieved to see that there was a zero percent risk of rain as the third and final practice session of the weekend got underway. The sun was baking the circuit, with track temperatures well above 40 degrees as cars ventured out.

The two Red Bulls of Verstappen and Perez took to the track on the medium compound tyres. Verstappen set the early benchmark time with a 1’18.478, then Perez went just under a tenth slower in second. Ferrari also sent their cars out for the opening ten minutes, with Charles Leclerc going third-fastest a second behind the Red Bulls on the medium tyres, while his team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr abandoned two consecutive push laps, complaining about the windy conditions at the Hungaroring.

With more limited tyre sets available for this weekend, some teams were much more conservative than usual in terms of how many laps they permitted their drivers to run. By the time half an hour had elapsed, only half of the 20 drivers have logged more than ten laps.

The wind appeared to continue to catch out drivers, with Leclerc running wide at the final corner and even Verstappen catching a snap of oversteer through turn two. The two Alfa Romeo drivers did not appear to be having such difficulties, however, with Valtteri Bottas going second-quickest and team mate Zhou Guanyu moving into third, both under a tenth away from Verstappen’s best on the medium tyres.

With just over 20 minutes left in the session, Aston Martin fitted a fresh set of soft tyres onto Fernando Alonso’s car. He used them to set a new best time of the session with a 1’18.350, just over a tenth quicker than Verstappen’s earlier best. But soon afterwards Norris used a set of medium tyres to take a quarter of a second out of Alonso’s best and put McLaren on top of the pile.

Then it was the turn of Mercedes and Red Bull to try a qualifying simulation run on soft tyres. Lewis Hamilton set purple sectors in all three sections of the circuit to easily jump to the top with a 1’17.811, but despite going quickest in sector one, Verstappen could not match the Mercedes and was exactly a quarter-of-a-second slower in second. Perez virtually matched his team mate to go third-fastest, while Russell was over half a second behind his team mate in sixth.

That was the last of the improvements at the very top of the times, with only Nico Hulkenberg jumping into the top five in the final ten minutes. When the chequered flag signalled the end of the session, Hamilton was quickest for Mercedes ahead of the two Red Bulls, Verstappen and Perez. Hulkenberg was fourth fastest ahead of Lando Norris on the medium compound tyres.

George Russell was sixth quickest ahead of the two Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz. Alonso was ninth, with Bottas completing the top ten. With drivers limited to only hard tyres during Q1, only Bottas ran on the hard compound tyres of the top 10 drivers during the session.

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2023 Hungarian Grand Prix third practice result

Position	Number	Driver	Team	Model	Time	Gap	Laps
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	W14	1’17.811		20
2	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	RB19	1’18.061	0.250	23
3	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	RB19	1’18.067	0.256	25
4	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	VF-23	1’18.077	0.266	21
5	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL60	1’18.082	0.271	18
6	63	George Russell	Mercedes	W14	1’18.119	0.308	22
7	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	SF-23	1’18.190	0.379	27
8	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	SF-23	1’18.234	0.423	29
9	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR23	1’18.350	0.539	20
10	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C43	1’18.489	0.678	24
11	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR23	1’18.536	0.725	20
12	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C43	1’18.544	0.733	23
13	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	FW45	1’18.592	0.781	17
14	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL60	1’18.598	0.787	19
15	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	VF-23	1’18.649	0.838	26
16	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	A523	1’18.776	0.965	22
17	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	FW45	1’18.814	1.003	16
18	3	Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	AT04	1’18.828	1.017	28
19	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	A523	1’18.979	1.168	22
20	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	AT04	1’19.156	1.345	28

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2023 Hungarian Grand Prix combined practice times

Position	Number	Driver	Team	FP1 time	FP2 time	FP3 time	Gap	Laps
1	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’41.142	1’17.686	1’18.190		1
2	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’40.277	1’17.701	1’18.082	0.015	2
3	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	No time	1’18.746	1’17.811	0.125	16
4	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	No time	1’17.918	1’18.776	0.232	3
5	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	1’45.575	1’17.934	1’19.156	0.248	4
6	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	No time	1’18.045	1’18.979	0.359	5
7	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	1’42.706	1’18.058	1’18.077	0.372	6
8	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	No time	1’18.279	1’18.061	0.375	11
9	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	No time	1’18.978	1’18.067	0.381	18
10	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’41.032	1’18.085	1’18.489	0.399	7
11	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’40.687	1’18.105	1’18.350	0.419	8
12	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’41.363	1’18.108	1’18.544	0.422	9
13	63	George Russell	Mercedes	1’38.795	1’19.175	1’18.119	0.433	20
14	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	No time	1’18.182	1’18.234	0.496	10
15	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’40.013	1’18.319	1’18.536	0.633	12
16	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	1’47.403	1’18.377	1’18.592	0.691	13
17	3	Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	No time	1’18.385	1’18.828	0.699	14
18	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’42.906	1’18.504	1’18.649	0.818	15
19	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	1’39.154	1’19.117	1’18.598	0.912	19
20	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	1’41.416	1’18.836	1’18.814	1.128	17

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2023 Hungarian Grand Prix

• Was F1’s Alternative Tyre Allocation test successful? Drivers and teams have their say
• How far can McLaren climb with car rivals now say is the second-fastest in F1?
• Why Ricciardo says McLaren’s car “speaks Lando’s language” – but Norris disagrees
• Mercedes reveal cooling error behind loss of pace in Hungarian GP
• Perez answered critics in Hungary but needs to qualify better – Horner

Browse all 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix articles