Hungarian GP: Piastri wins McLaren FP3 battle as Red Bull woes continue

McLaren made a daunting statement ahead of qualifying by comfortably setting the pace in Free Practice 3 for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Lando Norris applied the pressure, but it was Oscar Piastri who went fastest by 0.032s, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – four-tenths down on Piastri – the best of the rest, while Red Bull continued to struggle, Max Verstappen once more absent from the top 10.

Hungarian GP: McLaren put rivals on notice in FP3

Minus a couple of laps from McLaren and Aston Martin to scrub some hard and mediums tyres respectively, it was a quiet start to FP3 in Hungary.

A 1:18.0 from Franco Colapinto in the Alpine, set with soft tyres, was the time to chase, and with a quarter of the session gone, it was finally bettered by Lance Stroll by almost half a second, mediums bolted on to his Aston Martin for that effort.

Yuki Tsunoda quickly found another half a second on that to take over top spot.

Verstappen – this time with no pesky towel in the cockpit – plumped straight for soft tyres and cleared his team-mate by 0.475s, Verstappen looking to build important chemistry with the Red Bull RB21 after calling it “undriveable” on Friday.

As Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes bolted on the softs, Piastri shot up to P1, his 1:16.240 clearing George Russell by 0.072s, while Norris had work to do down in fifth, four-tenths off the pace, after a traffic-impacted run.

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Finding performance after a difficult Friday has become something of a trend for Verstappen, one which continued at the Hungaroring, pipping Piastri by four-hundredths, while Lewis Hamilton was forced to abort his effort after going wide at Turn 1.

No such troubles for Charles Leclerc in the sister Ferrari, who went purple in sectors 1 and 2 to take over as the new session leader, before Piastri took times into the 1:15s.

Esteban Ocon meanwhile felt he was a victim of Tsunoda retaliation through Turn 8/9, under the impression that the Red Bull driver thought he had blocked him on the previous lap and was getting his revenge.

Hamilton got his revenge on Turn 1 following his earlier error, shooting up to second, a tenth up on Leclerc, with a tenth-and-a-half to find on Piastri.

Norris would soon split the Ferraris, but still a quarter of a second shy of team-mate Piastri, there remained worked to do, which was impacted by further traffic issues, Isack Hadjar unimpressed as the McLaren pilot muscled his way through.

With 15 minutes to go, the task got a lot harder as Piastri found a full second. Over to Norris to respond.

The Brit delivered a purple Sector 3, but it was not quite enough to displace his team-mate, with three-thousandths between them. A scruffy lap from Verstappen saw him fail to improve, leaving Hamilton as the closest McLaren challenger, three quarters of a second adrift, while Tsunoda told Red Bull to “wake up” with the wrong delta appearing on his dash.

Verstappen was not best pleased in the sister Red Bull, lamenting, “You try to fix the rear and then it ploughs into understeer.”

Hadjar meanwhile was lucky to escape the wall as he spun going into the final corner. Taking too much kerb in his Racing Bulls, the Frenchman was sent into a spin, which fortunately triggered the yellow flags only, with no barriers hit.

It was a brief delay as Leclerc set about reducing McLaren’s breathing room, the buffer down to four-tenths, as Norris set off on another push lap, but could not improve with six minutes to go.

With no further improvements, Piastri, Norris and Leclerc was the final top three, a major statement made by McLaren going into qualifying.

Check out the full FP3 results here.

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