Hungarian GP: Nico Rosberg fends off Max Verstappen in practice

Championship leader Rosberg clocked a 1m20.261s on the super-soft tyres for his qualifying-simulation but did make a mistake in the final corner.

Verstappen had been edging nearer to the top throughout the session, and came very close to deposing Rosberg with his last run.

It was an impressive performance from Red Bull with Daniel Ricciardo third, 0.465s off the pace.

Lewis Hamilton ran wide on his first attempt at a qualifying simulation, which left him 0.508s off the pace.

He bolted on another set of super-softs, but ran wildly off road at Turn 4 and backed off, settling for fourth after running out of time for another lap.

Rosberg led the session from his first run onwards, setting the early pace with a 1m20.811s and then improving to a 1m20.547s later in the run, moving nearly half a second clear of Ricciardo at the time.

Hamilton, meanwhile, focused on gathering long-run data after he did not get a chance to do so in practice two following his crash.

Several drivers were adjudged to have abused track limits over the course of the session. The FIA will take a "zero tolerance" approach in qualifying and delete any laps that feature infringements.

Kimi Raikkonen was the leading Ferrari driver in fifth, 0.598s off the pace, and three tenths clear of team-mate Sebastian Vettel in sixth.

Fernando Alonso was seventh as Valtteri Bottas, Sergio Perez and Jolyon Palmer, who had a much more productive session following his loss of track time on Friday, closed out the top 10.

Williams ran a new floor, of which it only has one in Hungary, on Bottas's car to evaluate whether it is worth using it for the remainder of the weekend.

Bottas and team-mate Massa, who was 11th, did back-to-back tests with two front wing configurations to check on balance.

Toro Rosso continued to struggle with Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat 16th and 18th respectively.

The Saubers of Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson outpaced the Manors of Pascal Wehrlein and Rio Haryanto to finish 19th and 20th.

PRACTICE THREE TIMES