F1 News: Superior McLarens of Piastri & Norris bury competition in final practice

The superior Rob Marshall-designed McLaren F1 cars made a mockery of the rest of the teams in final practice for the 2025 Hungarian GP at the Hungaroring.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

F1 points leader Oscar Piastri turned a lap of 1m14.916s to top Practice 3 by 0.032s over his McLaren teammate Lando Norris.

The two Ferraris were next up in third and fourth.  Charles ended up 0.399s behind the McLaren of Piastri with Hamilton a massive 0.768s behind the McLaren.

It looks unlikely that Leclerc will finally get a front-row start here, unless one of the two McLarens makes a mistake later on.

But Ferrari are in the mix for the second row here, with Leclerc comfortably clear of the field in third. Hamilton improved from yesterday, his set-up tweaks paying dividends. He was fourth, but he was nearly four tenths behind his teammate.

Kimi Antonelli rounded out the top-5 for Mercedes, 0.829s behind Piastri’s McLaren.

The Red Bull RB21 dogs were so slow, Max Verstappen has to question his decision to stay with the Red Bull team for 2026.

Verstappen was a massive 1.246s behind the McLaren in 12th and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda was down in 19th, 1.962s behind Piastri.

Verstappen made a mistake on his last flying run on the softs, but as the wind picked up and the track heated up, the RB21 looked to revert back to its former guise, with balance and understeer an issue.

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So, the top three remain the same drivers as the other practice sessions, but with Piastri beating Norris for the first time this weekend. That was on merit too, with both drivers getting their lap in at the first time of asking on the second set of softs.

2025 Hungarian GP Practice 3 Results