Hungarian GP: Bottas leads Hamilton by 0.042s in Practice 3

Valtteri Bottas held a narrow advantage over Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in final practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

With rain surrounding the Hungaroring, teams were tentative to get out on track at first, but as the weather held, the action soon picked up with a flurry of qualifying runs.

And immediately the two Mercedes’ went quickest with Bottas ahead of Hamilton.

Max Verstappen was the only driver to opt for the medium tyre compound, with the rest on soft, and showed better pace in P6, three-quarters of a second slower.

The Dutchman though would spin at Turn 12 on a faster lap shortly after both Mercedes were seen smoking through the corner.

Sergio Perez put his Racing Point into second briefly before Hamilton went back fastest on the ninth lap of his initial soft tyre run.

Charles Leclerc was a strong fourth for Ferrari, who continue to show signs of improvement on the less power-dependent Budapest track.

The second wave of qualifying laps began with the Monegasque going fastest before Bottas responded with a 1m15.4s to go three-tenths faster in the Mercedes.

Verstappen switched to the soft tyre but could only go fourth in the Red Bull, six-tenths behind with surprisingly poor pace in the middle and last sector.

Hamilton improved but couldn’t quite match his Mercedes teammate as a poor final sector saw him just 0.042s behind Bottas in second.

Perez jumped back up to third in the Racing Point, just 0.161s off the pace as Leclerc dropped to a still solid fourth.

Lance Stroll was fifth in the second ‘Pink Mercedes’, four-tenths slower than his teammate but still fast enough to drop Verstappen to sixth.

Lando Norris put McLaren in the upper midfield mix in seventh ahead of Sebastian Vettel in the second Ferrari in eighth.

Despite worrying about more engine issues, Pierre Gasly was still a strong ninth in the AlphaTauri as Daniel Ricciardo moved up to 10th in the final stages for Renault.

Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon were two surprise names outside the top 10 in 11th and 12th, with Esteban Ocon 13th.

George Russell has a strong chance of making Q2 for the second straight weekend after managing 14th in the Williams, ahead of the Haas’, Alfa Romeo’s and Daniil Kvyat.

The Briton was also eight-tenths clear of teammate Nicholas Latifi, who finished bottom of the standings.