Nicholas Latifi set a towering benchmark for Williams in a soaked FP3 session in Hungary, leaving Charles Leclerc second by 0.661s – and the other Williams of Alex Albon third by 0.901s to his team mate.
Intermediate runs late in FP3 shook the order up, and Latifi’s stunning lap of 1m 41.480s put him over six-tenths ahead of Leclerc – who spun on inters late on – for the Canadian to lead a Formula 1 session for the first time in his career. Albon finished third, leaving Max Verstappen fourth, over eight-tenths behind the Thai driver.
George Russell finished fifth for Mercedes, both of the Silver Arrows finding tire warm-up particularly difficult in the soaked conditions. Torrential downpours welcomed the drivers at the start of the session, but subsided for the racers to put in intermediate laps at the very end.
Fernando Alonso was the first driver to stop – pulling off an incredible save and to keep out of danger – and finished sixth ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. Lando Norris finished eighth as the last of the top 10 to set their fastest lap on intermediates, while Sebastian Vettel finished ninth – having crashed at Turn 10 to bring out a red flag with 10 minutes remaining.
Kevin Magnussen finished 10th for Haas ahead of Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time champion in the garage for much of the session with the team seemingly poring over his engine. He set his lap on intermediates but 12th-placed Mick Schumacher’s benchmark was set on wets.
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was 13th ahead of Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), with that trio setting their fastest laps on intermediates.
Next on the board was rookie Zhou Guanyu, just over a tenth ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, while Zhou’s Alfa Romeo team mate finished 18th – albeit on wets rather than inters.
Pierre Gasly (on wets) finished 19th for AlphaTauri and Sergio Perez rounded out the standings for Red Bull, six seconds off the pace as he and Hamilton (P10) set just 11 laps apiece in FP3.
2022 Hungarian GP FP3: Fernando Alonso’s big save in wet final practice