Lewis Hamilton was quickest in the third and final practice session ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
Just 0.098 seconds se
parated the two Mercedes drivers at the top of the timesheets, but the session did not end well for Rosberg after the German stalled his engine attempting a practice start at the end of the pitlane.
“Nico’s engine stalled, but we don’t know why,” Mercedes boss Paddy Lowe told Sky. “It wasn’t planned; we’ll look into it.
It was Nico Hulkenberg who topped the times at the halfway point in the session, but it was the Mercedes drivers who showed their strength once the teams moved on to the soft tyre.
With around twelve minutes remaining, Nico Rosberg set a blistering lap of 1:23.096 on the soft tyre to move 1.388s ahead of Hulkenberg.
A few minutes later, it was Lewis Hamilton who regained the top spot, shaving a tenth of a second off Rosberg’s best time on his soft tyre run.
Ferrari had a mixed session, with Sebastian Vettel the only driver to set a time within one second of the Mercedes in P3, but his teammate Raikkonen ended up P16 after a ‘dramatic water leak’ ended his session with around twenty minutes remaining.
Red Bull look to have leapfrogged rivals Williams going into qualifying, with Kvyat taking a strong fourth just three-tenths behind Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari.
Teammate Ricciardo would have been higher up, but a mistake on his final soft tyre run meant he failed to improve, despite being six-tenths up on his previous best at one point.
Williams had a difficult day and struggled for pace as they had expected, with Massa down in P12 and his teammate Bottas in P14.
Images courtesy of Mercedes AMG Petronas
