F1 Hungarian GP Live Commentary and Updates – FP3 & Qualifying
Saturday's action from the 13th round of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
F1 takes on a double-header dash before the summer break, starting in Hungary before a trip to Spa-Francorchamps, following the thrilling recent trio of races concluded by Lewis Hamilton’s emotional British GP triumph.
Lando Norris led the way on Friday from Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz after Charles Leclerc ended his day early in the wall.
Final practice starts at 11:30pm BST, followed by qualifying at 3pm BST.
Live Standings
Summary
Live Text
Hulkenberg goes fifth for Haas as he seeks to continue his strong run of recent results - and he was fastest of everyone in the opening sector.
But here comes Verstappen, he's on the softs now and is on an outlap. Let's get a true barometer of how good the McLarens are looking.
Piastri is also looking quick and goes second and is just half a tenth behind his team-mate.
Albon goes third with a really decent effort in the Williams to also be half a second down on Norris.
It's a 1m16.098s for Norris to go almost half a second faster than Russell! This McLaren is looking very good.
Sargeant, meanwhile, climbs to fifth with his latest effort.
Here comes Norris, let's see what he can do! Looking good in the first sector at least!
And we're back to having three British drivers at the top of the leaderboard!
Hamilton is also on the pace now and puts in a 1m16.786s to narrow the gap to just two tenths to his team-mate.
And Russell now goes even faster! It's a 1m16.564s on his latest set of softs. Very impressive.
At the two-thirds mark, Russell continues to set the pace after a truly stunning time for the Mercedes driver. The two McLarens are next up, then the two Ferraris, the two RBs, Hulkenberg and then you finally get Hamilton - winner last time out, of course.
We haven't seen proper soft efforts from the Aston Martins either, as they've preferred the mediums so far today.
We're over halfway through this session and still the Red Bulls have yet to truly show their hands. Verstappen and Perez continue to pound around on the hards, surely they will bolt on some softs at some point to understand the impact of the cooler conditions? Plus, we want to see how they're shaping up ahead of qualifying!
Piastri now climbs up to third to demote the Ferraris back to fourth and fifth.
Hamilton has been sliding around on his lap in contrast and continues to look uncomfortable in the car. He is only ninth and is over six tenths slower than his team-mate. Ouch.
We have a new pacesetter! Russell goes top, just a tenth quicker than Norris - a 1m16.826s for the Mercedes racer and that's another encouraging effort.
We haven't mentioned Red Bull for a while and that's because both of them are continuing to use the hards, in contrast to almost everyone using softs.
Now, that's more like it for Leclerc! He goes up to third and almost exactly matches the time of his team-mate Sainz, despite the Ferraris continuing to look unstable through Turn 4 and its kerb.
Hulkenberg, meanwhile, goes sixth so clearly wasn't too badly affected either.
Sainz soon put that close call behind him to go second and narrow Norris' advantage to three tenths. Team-mate Leclerc remains mired down in 18th.
Sainz and Hulkenberg - could they be team-mates next year? - get a bit too close for comfort there. Remember it's only FP3, chaps.
Gasly is another one to go straight on at Turn 1, but it's a lot more dramatic than Leclerc's earlier. The Alpine has a huge lock-up and he goes through the gravel and is baffled on the radio about what happened there.
Ricciardo is another driver fighting for his future, but he produces a brilliant time to go second! Just three hundredths faster than Tsunoda, but it all counts! Norris still comfortably fastest.
Leclerc then puts in another lap as he recovers from his crash yesterday but has a real twitch through Turn 4 and is still only 18th.
It's not looking good for Leclerc, who goes straight on at Turn 1 on his first flying lap having mistimed his braking on cold tyres.
Tsunoda now jumps into that sizeable gap between the McLarens, the RB driver goes fractionally faster than Piastri to grab second.
Hamilton now goes third but is half a second behind Norris' brilliant 1m16.931s.
It doesn't last long for the Williams driver as he is quickly pipped by Norris and Russell. Norris is now four tenths of a second faster than Piastri as they both use the softs.
And here's an unusual sentence: Albon goes top! Yes he's on the hards, but it still counts!
Alonso is the latest driver to be Verstappen's closest rival and is less than a tenth behind the Red Bull conqueror, but is on the mediums in contrast to the Dutchman's hards.
Bottas now goes second on the softs, two tenths behind Verstappen and that's much better than Ocon's opening gambit on the same tyres, which puts him fifth.
Stroll splits the Red Bulls on the mediums as finally another driver posts a lap time. It's a 1m18.447s from Stroll to go half a second slower than Verstappen.
More drivers starting to join the fun now as the Williams racers and one of the team's former drivers, George Russell, go out.
Gasly is out in the sister Alpine now and both are on the softs, as is Bottas' Sauber.
Finally, someone else joins the fray and Ocon becomes the ninth driver to sample the Hungaroring today as we're now a quarter of the way through this session already.
And he takes full advantage of that clear track to put in a 1m17.938s - that's a brilliant effort considering he's just two tenths slower than Norris' pace yesterday and yet is on the slower hard tyres.
Verstappen now has the track all to himself as he's back out on the hards - a very low-key start to this session!
Hamilton is another driver showing no sign of going out soon as he's deep in conversation with his engineer Pete Bonnington in the Mercedes garage.
Verstappen reports some understeer on the radio as he now returns to the pits after five laps on those hard tyres.
Perez also now improves but he's still four tenths adrift of his more illustrious team-mate - let's see if he can get that gap down further.
By: Autosport Staff
