Lewis Hamilton led the way in the final hour of practice in Budapest, as the Mercedes driver set the pace ahead of championship leader Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez, as preparations wrapped up ahead of qualifying later today.

With just 60 minutes left in the weekend to hone their set-ups ahead of qualifying and the race on Sunday, the drivers made their way out on to a much greener Hungaroring track to the one they left yesterday, with heavy rain having hit the circuit overnight.

As the teams continued to adapt to Pirelli’s Alternative Tyre Allocation for the weekend – mandating the use of hards in Q1, mediums in Q2 and softs in Q3 – we saw a number of drivers go out on used slick tyres to begin the session. One driver who was on a fresh set of mediums was Verstappen, and he went straight to the top of the timesheets with a time of 1m 18.478s.

The drivers then began to make the switch to some brand-new soft tyres, with Hamilton vaulting straight to the top of the timesheets with a time of 1m 17.811s, exactly two and half tenths ahead of Verstappen in second.

Perez continued his recovery from his crash in FP1 and his damaging lock-up in second practice to go third, ahead of the impressive Haas of Nico Hulkenberg in fourth, with Lando Norris rounding out the top five – although his best time was intriguingly set on the mediums.