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As it happened: Saturday Morning Practice
By Geoff Creighton and Emlyn Hughes
The live commentary has ended. No further updates will be posted.
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OVERVIEW |
PRACTICE THREE |
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Session length: |
60 minutes |
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CURRENT WEATHER |
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Mainly sunny |
High Temp: |
24°C / 75°F |
Track: |
Dry |
ABOUT |
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Emlyn Hughes and Geoff Creighton are autosport.com's live commentary team. The dynamic duo have developed an inimitable style and a reputation for fast, accurate and insightful commentary. With unrivaled access to events unfolding at the circuit, they bring you the very latest, as it happens.
Bugs and Feedback |
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The pressure increases today as the teams prepare for the serious business of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix at the tight and twisty 4.381 km Hungaroring circuit.
Third practice will begin shortly, with commentary ending 15 minutes after the session has concluded.
Later, at 11:45 GMT, we will return for live coverage of the all-important qualifying session and the battle for pole position. AUTOSPORT Live will end the day with a detailed Sunday weather forecast, on the Hungarian Grand Prix weather page.
The morning session was dominated by the young man whose name had been on everyone's lips in the build-up to the event - Jaime Alguersuari. The 19-year-old Spaniard, making his debut with Toro Rosso this weekend, acclimatised himself well in difficult circumstances.
Up front, it was Mark Webber who set the pace for much of the first 90-minutes, but late runs from Hamilton, Nico Rosberg in the Williams and Kovalainen saw the Australian demoted to fourth in the final minutes. Kazuki Nakajima was fifth in the second Williams, and Jarno Trulli started the weekend well for Toyota in sixth.
The hot and bright conditions of the morning continued through to the afternoon session, where McLaren confirmed themselves as a serious threat this weekend.
Williams set the early pace, but soon it was Kovalainen moving to the top of the standings with a quick lap on the super-soft tyres. His 1m22.126s remained the quickest time until the final few minutes.
First to have a serious crack at beating the mark was Rosberg, but he fell 0.028 seconds short. Hamilton finally seized his opportunity right at the death to pip his team-mate by 0.047s with the fastest lap of the day - 1m22.079s.
So It was McLaren one and two, with Rosberg a noteworthy third. Mark Webber was once again in the top four for Red Bull Racing, with Kazuki Nakajima fifth and Sebastian Vettel rounding out the top six.
The national rainfall radar shows us the dawn rain already moving out of Hungary to the east. To the west of Budapest, there are some light scattered showers around, but if you play the image loop you will notice that these are weakening all the time, and most will fizzle out before they reach the circuit.
Just under an hour ago there were some light spots falling, but this shower has also cleared away to the east, and we expect a mainly dry day with plenty of cloud around in the morning. But, the sun will be poking through more often as we head towards qualifying.
As the cold front passed over the region, so the temperatures have plummeted. The maximum air temperature this afternoon will reach 24 degrees Celsius, and with some cloud cover around, we'll get nowhere near the high 47 degree track temperature that was achieved during second practice yesterday.
• Will McLaren run at the front again this morning and cement their Friday position?
• Brawn GP were out of the limelight during the two practice sessions. Will they come back with a bang today?
• Will F1 debutant Jaime Alguersuari keep his nose clean for the second day in a row?
Tell everyone what you think.
Click the SHOW LIVE FORUM link in the red bar at the bottom of your browser window if you'd like to join the debate.
Czech Josef Kral took a lights-to-flag victory for JD Motorsport. Second-place starter Fabio Leimer struggled for grip off the dirty side of the grid, something that will have caught the eye of the Formula 1 engineers ahead of qualifying later.
Grip levels will have reduced with the overnight rain on the surface, leaving the teams with just an hour to draw their final conclusions on the super soft and soft compound tyres ahead of what is set to be an extremely hard-fought qualifying hour.
Tyres were a hot topic with the drivers as they spoke to reporters after Friday's sessions.
"This circuit is always a bit slippery when you get here, a bit dusty, but today [Friday] it was especially slippery," said championship leader Jenson Button.
"The harder tyre is the one to work with, and the softer tyre, people are getting graining and overheating, so there's a lot of work going into getting the tyres to work properly."
Felipe Massa had several off-track excursions yesterday and later said: "I was definitely not very happy with the balance, and also especially how the tyres were working. So it was very difficult to find a solution, and I was struggling a lot.
"Usually here is a track where the surface improves massively from one day to the other, so the conditions tomorrow should be better.
"But anyway, it was a very, very difficult day to find the right balance on the car and especially the right grip from the tyres," concluded the Brazilian.
Yesterday, the Australian sat out the second half of the afternoon practice session, after suffering a differential issue with the gearbox.
The kid is flying and now moves up to second place with 1m22.487s.
One drawback is that Vettel's rear end is the one feeling the heat - from the ground. Sebastian tells the team that he can't continue running this low as he is getting way too hot in some sensitive areas.
He is on track and improving as he plays catch-up on the rest of the field. He quickly improves to seventh position with a lap of 1m22.286s.
Nick Heidfeld jumped up to second in the dying moments, with Nico Rosberg third, Heikki Kovalainen fourth, Sebastien Buemi fifth in the Toro Rosso and Timo Glock making the best of a bad job in sixth place.
Nevertheless, a tight and exciting qualifying hour is in prospect, with grid position so vital here in Hungary.
Are we set for one of the closest qualifying sessions ever? Join us at 11:45 GMT to find out.