Ferrari FP3 report: Charles Leclerc P2, Carlos Sainz P7

Today’s final practice and qualifying sessions should be absolutely fascinating as heavy rain – and potentially thunderstorms – could give us some jumbled-up results.

Despite the rain, the light at the end of the pit lane went green and we were under way as scheduled with the third practice session for the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring circuit.

There were no takers in the first minutes of the session, with the track remaining empty. The first driver to brave the wet conditions was Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, as the Monegasque was swiftly joined by his Maranello team-mate Carlos Sainz. They were, unsurprisingly, taking it very steadily to begin with. Lando Norris and Zhou Guanyu then joined the Ferrari cars out on track, as we could hear Carlos Sainz informing his team over the radio that the worst conditions should be in the final sector.

Only the Red Bull cars, the Mercedes and the Williams of Nicholas Latifi were yet to take to the track as teams attempted some wet running. Fernando Alonso even went out on intermediate tyres – the only driver not on full wets at that stage. For what it’s worth, Charles Leclerc set the fastest time in the first 20 minutes: his 1:43:364 was around a second faster than his team-mate Carlos Sainz and almost 2.5s ahead of the next best time set by Fernando Alonso on intermediate tyres. George Russell then exited the garage, the first Mercedes to head out today.

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As Valtteri Bottas finished a lap, Mick Schumacher and Pierre were are the only cars out on track until then. We saw Alex Albon and Zhou Guanyu slide off, so one could understand why many drivers were refusing to take any risks. but there was no more rain for the second half of the last free practice session at the Hungaroring, which meant track conditions started to gradually improve and we saw some lower lap times: On the weekend he announced his retirement from F1, Sebastian Vettel went second fastest in his Aston Martin, around 0.8s behind Charles Leclerc’s best time.

With 15 minutes to go, we saw some superb car control from the man who was topping the timesheets – but it showed how difficult the conditions are for all drivers: a big 360 spin for Charles Leclerc, but without any consequences, unlike for Sebastian Vettel, who found the barrier at Turn 10 as we had a red flag!

The Aston Martin driver, who announced earlier this week that he will retire at the end of the season, let out a scream of frustration over team radio. The recovery job was progressing quite swiftly, so we therefore had a little more action in the final minutes: half the cars were immediately back out on track.

And it was Nicholas Latifi who surprisingly topped the timesheets, taking advantage of the improving conditions to set the fastest time of Practice Three. Max Verstappen went fastest for a moment, he was easily bettered by Charles Leclerc, but then Latifi came through with a further 0.6s of improvement. That only serves to highlight how crucial timing flying laps will be in qualifying later.