McLarens sent a warning to Verstappen ahead of qualifying in Hungary

The die has been cast. After the dispute of Free practice 3 of the Hungarian GPa, things are falling into place and everyone is ready for another exciting battle in the fight for the pole F1 2024 Hungarian GP classification today (4:00 pm). Again, with McLaren fighting earlier Verstappenwaiting to find out if anyone else will join the fray when they put all the meat on the grill of their machines.

McLaren sent a clear warning to Verstappen. After leading on Friday with the Lando Norris, the Briton, was once again the fastest in Free Practice 3, and with something very important, with his teammate Oscar Piastri in second position just 44 thousandths behind. This is no longer a surprise.

McLaren is already one of the best cars on most tracks and, waiting to see what happens to ‘qualy’ when everyone revs up their engines, it seems that Max had to work hard again in his Red Bull after finishing 3rd at 0″281

The question remains whether the Dutch kept more to themselves than the English. It will be cleared at ‘qualy’ this Saturday afternoon. It seems that the evolutions brought to Hungary can give more to the Dutch magician.

No one doubts that he will make the McLarens suffer again in a important classification because of how difficult it is to overtake on the track on a narrow track and mousers. Having the pole, or both cars on the front line, is a high percentage of success. McLaren like it but the three-time champion is in front of them.

The ‘qualy’ seems exciting because of the equality, but above all, because it is a very narrow track, where there will definitely be chaos due to trafficand where any mistake is paid dearly.

Mercedes, taking a walk

Another doubt is to see if the Mercedes, very fast in the last races with fast corners, they will also be able to make the jump with the quality they usually do from Q2 of the ‘qualy’ to the fight for the pole. It’s a circuit they’re good at, where they’ve achieved pole position in recent times with a car lower than the current one.

For now, Russell is again the best Mercedes in fourth place, albeit very far, 0.466 behind the best Meanwhile, hamilton, with a spin in the second sector in his last attempt, is a complete mystery. He suffered oversteer when entering a curve badly and lost the car, which at least avoided damage. The track warned the Englishman, a layout that leaves no room for failure, that gives no rest to the drivers and where rain may arrive at the end of Q3.

Sainz, 5th

Carlos Sainz, with his Ferrari, was 5th. The Spaniard is 0.541 off the best time, far from feeling that he has a lot of speed in a lap to be on top, although the race speed is lower than the best, but in FP3, Lower track temperatures compared to Friday may have detracted from his performance. ‘Quality’ is important for your pursuits on this track.

Behind him Ricciardo, with RB, 6th at 0″554, with Albon 7th, Hülkenberg in eighth place, Tsunoda in 9th and Lewis in 10th for the spin he did.

And Leclerc? Well, for now, it’s gone. He had an accident on Friday due to too much risk in FP2 and it looks like the weekend is going to drag on. They want to break out of their slump in results and to do this they need to improve drastically on ‘quality’. At this moment, he overbraked in an attempt on the soft and went flat on the rubber. He was 11th, 0.7 off the best time.

Alonso, hit by another yellow flag

Fernando Alonso was already affected on Friday by a yellow flag that ruined his turn. And it happened again in this FP3. He was left without a representative time of his true speed in qualifying for it. He was able to turn later, using the most used rubber, to be 14º at 0″9 the best on a tremendously even grid. He wants to fight for Q3 in a very tight battle because it seems that the new features of the car allow the handling of the car to improve, a main goal of the new parts.