The Spaniard won the race with a time of 1 minute, 18.750 seconds, finishing 0.130 seconds ahead of Verstappen. Leclerc was close behind in third place, one tenth of a second back.
Lando Norris of McLaren waited until the last possible moment to put on the soft tyres, which allowed him to move up to fourth place at the Hungaroring, the site of F1’s final race before the summer break. Teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who was faster on the mediums than Norris, finished half a second behind him in eighth.
George Russell, who was driving the leading Mercedes, was in fifth place, ahead of Sergio Perez. Seven-time world winner Lewis Hamilton finished eighth, with Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso of the Alpine team rounding out the top 10.
As Aston Martin spent the majority of the practise session on the more resilient compounds before shifting their focus late onto the soft, Sebastian Vettel, who on Thursday revealed he will retire from Formula One at the end of the year, was 11th, just ahead of teammate Lance Stroll.
Yuki Tsunoda‘s teammate Pierre Gasly advanced to 13th place ahead of him, and Zhou Guanyu drove the old-spec Alfa Romeo to 15th place. Valtteri Bottas, a teammate, has the new floor this weekend; Zhou will have it for Spa; however, he won’t be able to test it until FP2 because Robert Kubica, a reserve driver, took the first lap and finished 19th.
Prior to Kevin Magnussen, who was driving the highly upgraded Haas and the American team’s first update package of the season, Alex Albon placed his Williams in 16th place. Mick Schumacher, who will receive the Haas update for Spa, finished FP1 in 18th place, with Nicholas Latifi’s Williams supporting the timesheets.
