Astonishing Latifi leads a fast Williams 1-3 as heavy rains consume FP3 – 2022 Hungarian GP FP3 highlights
After a very long time, fans got to see F1 cars in full wets as it rain reigned over at the Hungaroring.
Nicholas Latifi shocked the F1 community with an astonishing drive claiming P1 at the 2022 Hungarian GP FP3. Williams overall had a very pleasing session at the extreme wet conditions in Hungary as Latifi’s teammate Alex Albon took a shocking P3. Leclerc was the only “Top Gun” in the top 3 at FP3 in Budapest. Let’s find out how this happened.
Nicholas Latifi set a towering benchmark for Williams in a soaked Hungaroring at the FP3 session leading Leclerc by a staggering 0.661s leaving in dust the other Williams of Alex Albon by 0.901s to his team mate. For all the times Latifi was mocked around for crashing and the hate he received online post the 2021 Abu DHabi GP, this was a fantastic redemption drive. Even though this wasn’t Qualifying, it goes on to show the progress that Williams have made as we expect to see some more action in Qualifying.
While the drivers were welcomed with torrential rains in the beginning of the session, the drivers were finally able to set some laps on the intermediate tyres during the end of the session. Max Verstappen finished a staggering 1.7s behind Latifi, something I never imagined I’d be typing here in a million years! Mercedes struggled particularly with tyre warm up in the soaked track conditions at Hungary as Russell finished in P5 while Hamilton finished P11 thanks to an issue with his car’s KERS system during the beginning of the session. His car was mostly being worked on by his mechanics owing to the issue.
Fernando Alonso was the first driver to put the inters in action pulling off an incredible save just keeping himself out of danger. He finished sixth ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz as Lando Norris finished eighth with the last of the top 10 to set their fastest lap on intermediates. Sebastian Vettel finished ninth having announced his retirement on Friday, 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.
