Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – Free Practice 3: Verstappen back in front!

Last free practice session before the qualifications of this Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the drivers only had one hour to fully understand this new track.

The two Haas cars were, as often, the first cars to take to the track.

After 15 minutes of the session, Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time with a 1’29’605. This lap was performed with hard tires. His teammate Valtteri Bottas was second, also on hard tires. The question was whether Mercedes was using these tires to go for a hard tire strategy in Q2 or if this choice was motivated by preserving the softer tires.

After his 3rd place during free practice 2, Pierre Gasly continued to impress today by placing just behind Hamilton and Verstappen. If the Normand is fast on qualifying laps, he was not very confident about his AlphaTauri’s ability to replicate this pace in long stints. Like in Qatar, where he had started on the front row and had ended up outside the Top 10.

At the halfway stage, the gap between the two title rivals was 3 tenths. The difference was that Lewis Hamilton was still on his hard tires unlike Max Verstappen who was using the soft tires.

On his 9th lap with soft tires, the Dutch driver eventually moved to the top of the timesheet with a 1’28’212.

End of a very messy session for Lewis Hamilton who blocked Pierre Gasly at the first corner and later Nikita Mazepin at turn number 8. The fault lies either with a lack of attention from the driver or poor communication with his engineer.

Pierre Gasly finally drops to 5th place in the timing sheet behind Sergio Perez’s Red Bull and his garage neighbor, Yuki Tsunoda.

Ferrari, Alpine, and McLaren are separated by just three tenths of a second. A testament to this extremely close battle in the midfield.

While the Mercedes seemed to have the advantage over the Red Bulls on Friday, the Austrian team managed to reverse the trend and emerge as the favorites for pole position.

Result of FP3: