Photo: McLaren
Formula 1 f1 f12025season f1hungary f1saturday reports oscarpiastri
McLarens were once again the fastest cars in FP3, this time with Oscar Piastri edging out Lando Norris by a tiny margin.
The final practice session before qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix began quietly, with only a few laps completed early on. The first timed lap came from Franco Colapinto, who set a 1:18.0 on soft tyres for Alpine. That benchmark was soon beaten by Lance Stroll, who went almost half a second quicker on mediums in his Aston Martin. Yuki Tsunoda then found another half-second and moved to the top.
Max Verstappen joined the session on soft tyres and quickly took over first place, going 0.475 seconds quicker than his teammate. After calling his car “undriveable” on Friday, Verstappen was looking to rebuild trust in his Red Bull before qualifying.
As Ferrari, McLaren, and Mercedes switched to softs, the session came alive. Oscar Piastri jumped to the top with a time of 1:16.240, going 0.072 seconds faster than George Russell. Lando Norris, however, had a disrupted run due to traffic and was four tenths off the pace in fifth place.
Lewis Hamilton, attempting to join the fight at the front, ran wide at Turn 1 and had to abandon his lap. Charles Leclerc, on the other hand, made no such mistake. He went fastest in sectors 1 and 2 and took over the top spot, only for Piastri to retake it shortly after with the first lap in the 1:15s.
With 15 minutes left, Piastri raised the bar again, improving by a full second. Norris responded with a strong lap, setting the fastest time in sector 3, but he came up just short, missing the top spot by only 0.003 seconds.
Verstappen was unable to match the McLarens after a messy lap. Frustrated, he complained: “You try to fix the rear and then it ploughs into understeer.” Tsunoda was also unhappy, calling on Red Bull to “wake up” after a delta time error on his dash.
Hadjar had a close call near the end of the session, spinning into the run-up to the final corner after taking too much kerb. Luckily, he avoided the wall and no red flags were needed.
Hadjar dips a wheel onto the astroturf exiting Turn 13 and round he goes 😵💫#F1 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/s7So7GZ5vI
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 2, 2025
Leclerc managed to cut McLaren’s advantage to four tenths, but Norris couldn’t improve on his final run with six minutes to go. With no further changes, the session ended with McLaren on top again.
Piastri finished first with a time of 1:14.916, just 0.033 seconds ahead of Norris in second. Leclerc was third for Ferrari, almost four tenths behind, with Hamilton fourth, three tenths slower than his teammate.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli was fifth for Mercedes. Fernando Alonso continued his strong weekend in sixth for Aston Martin, followed by Lance Stroll in seventh. George Russell placed eighth, while Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg completed the top ten for Sauber.
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