After yesterday’s disrupted running, teams were needing to make up for lost time as many were unable to do their intended program during yesterday’s sessions.
But it was once again a Mercedes 1-2 with Valtteri Bottas topping his third session on the trot, on a 1.16.654, 0.026 ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton. In third place was Max Verstappen who was only 0.158 off the fastest time, showing signs that Red Bull could be closer to Mercedes than we originally thought.
It was a good session for Pierre Gasly, who after taking a new chassis and replaced the engine after yesterday’s fire set the fourth fastest time, ahead of the driver that replaced him at Red Bull, Alexander Albon in fifth, whilst despite a spin early on, Charles Leclerc continued to show Ferrari’s improvements to set the sixth fastest time.
Carlos Sainz was seventh in the timesheets ahead of Sergio Perez in eighth, Lando Norris in ninth and Esteban Ocon rounds out the top 10. Sebastian Vettel was eleventh but his most notable moment of the session was when he ran over a drain cover which went up, damaged his car, and brought out the red flags. Whilst Daniel Ricciardo also had issues, his DRS failing and the late red flag preventing him setting a time at the end.
Here is the classification of Practice 3!
RaceWeek 