Hungarian GP Practice Three: Lewis Hamilton tops timesheet ahead of both Red Bulls to move into pole position contention

Lewis Hamilton 0.25s ahead of Red Bulls in final practice; Lando Norris also in mix after setting best time on slower medium tyre; watch Hungarian GP live on Sky Sports F1, Qualifying starts at 3pm Saturday; F1 Juniors is live on Sky Showcase and Sky Sports Mix on Sunday

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Lewis Hamilton topped the time sheets in the final practice session of the Hungarian GP.

Lewis Hamilton lay down a marker ahead of Qualifying at the Hungarian GP by comfortably beating both Red Bulls to the fastest time in final practice.

The seven-time world champion put in a best time of 1:17.811 to finish 0.250s ahead of championship leader Max Verstappen, who was complaining about the stability of his Red Bull and a lack of grip.

Sergio Perez was a further 0.006s back in third in the other RB19.

The Hungaroring is a track Hamilton loves, with the Mercedes driver having won here eight times during his F1 career. His leading time came with 12 minutes to go in the session as Mercedes finally bolted on the soft tyres for the first time this weekend, having done all their running on medium tyres up until then.

“I think that was quite a phenomenal lap from Lewis,” Sky Sports F1’s Nico Rosberg said on commentary.

“I think he’s in the zone at one of his favourite tracks here.”

Lando Norris could also be well in the mix in qualifying this afternoon, which gets under way at 3pm on Sky Sports F1. The McLaren driver was fifth, 0.271s off Hamilton’s benchmark, but set his best time on the slower medium tyres.

“This could be quite an exciting qualifying coming up,” Rosberg continued.

“We’ve got Lewis in great form, Lando in awesome form and we don’t really know where Red Bull are here at the moment, there was a lot of complaining from them out on track.”

There is added jeopardy to Saturday afternoon’s qualifying as F1 trials the ‘Alternative Tyre Allocation’ format for the first time. Drivers will only be able to use hard tyres in Q1, only medium tyres in Q2 and only soft tyres in Q3.

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Toto Wolff reacts to Lewis Hamilton topping Practice Three and gives his verdict on this weekend’s new qualifying format.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1 his drivers had felt the W14 was transformed on the soft tyre, and warned ahead of Qualifying: “If we are not good on the medium, you could fall off in Q2, not even make it into Q3 where we would be maybe magical.”

Nico Hulkenberg was just ahead of Norris in the Haas, while George Russell was behind his compatriot in sixth and three tenths off Mercedes team-mate Hamilton’s leading effort.

Friday’s pace-setter Charles Leclerc was only seventh ahead of Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz with the very high track temperature seeing both drivers see their times fall away in the latter part of their laps.

Fernando Alonso had briefly topped the timesheets but ended up ninth, with Valtteri Bottas completing the top 10.

The session ended with the returning Daniel Ricciardo having a near miss with Zhou Guanyu as he came up behind the slow-moving Alfa Romeo at the end of the pit-lane exit after doing a practice start.

Ricciardo was 18th in the timesheet, but three tenths of a second ahead of AlphaTauri team-mate Yuki Tsunoda who ended the session 20th.