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.
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Summary
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Verstappen improves further this time around to get down to a 1m18.312s as it's still just the Red Bulls to have a time on the board.
The McLarens initially headed out on the hards to put a heat cycle through them and have now switched to the mediums. Aston Martin's drivers have also done something similar.
Piastri is the next to put in an appearance and is now joined by team-mate Norris - let's see what McLaren can do as they arguably enter this event as favourites.
Verstappen usurps Perez at the top of he leaderboard now with a 1m18.897s, two tenths quicker.
Over at Alpine, there's definitely no rush for Ocon to head out as he's not even in his car - a car he won't be seeing much longer as he plots his 2025 move.
Perez is the first to set a time as the other drivers dive straight back into the pits. It's a 1m19.159s for Perez - but that's not a representative lap.
Verstappen now joins his team-mate Perez in heading out and both are running the hard tyres - everyone else who has gone out so far has been on the mediums.
Bottas, Alonso and Stroll also venture out but, unsurprisingly, there's not a huge rush to head out immediately.
We talked about Perez earlier and he's one of the first two drivers to head out along with Sauber's Zhou.
And we're off - final practice for the Hungarian GP is under way!
But we most note that things are considerably cooler over in Hungary today, it's just 27 degrees currently and that could have an impact on the competitive order.
McLaren's Lando Norris set the pace yesterday and here's a reminder of some of the key things we learned from Friday's running:
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/what-we-learned-from-friday-practice-at-the-2024-f1-hungarian-gp/10636306/
But, before we get carried away and look too far ahead to qualifying, we've got the small matter of final practice first. That begins in just two minutes' time and gives the teams/drivers another hour to get acclimatised to the Hungaroring.
Today is also a big day for Sergio Perez. Despite Red Bull saying "everything is open", he is coming under increasing pressure after a dismal set of results in recent races. He must get closer to team-mate Max Verstappen's pace today:
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/red-bull-on-perezs-f1-future-everything-is-open/10636450/
Last time out he ended a winless streak of two-and-a-half years to triumph on home soil and Mercedes' Andrew Shovlin has explained some of the problems Hamilton has faced in getting to grips with the current ground-effect cars:
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/mercedes-explains-hamiltons-struggles-with-f1s-ground-effect-cars/10636466/
This time two weeks ago we had an historic moment as three British drivers qualified in the top three places for an F1 race for the first time in over 60 years. But the chances of a repeat today appear slim as Lewis Hamilton had a tricky time in practice yesterday and is not feeling particularly confident.
Hello, and welcome to Autosport's live text coverage of the Saturday of the Hungarian Grand Prix!
By: Autosport Staff
