Less than a tenth of a second covered the top three as Max Verstappen split the two Mercedes’ in final practice at the Tuscan Grand Prix.
The Dutchman initially led on mediums versus the two Mercedes’ on softs after the first series of flying laps, but couldn’t quite match Valtteri Bottas’ best on the second set of tyres as the Finn took P1 with a 1m16.530s.
Verstappen was 0.017s behind in second, consistently setting the fastest final sector against the all-black Silver Arrows, while Lewis Hamilton also made improvement versus Friday to be 0.083 behind in third.
A gap of half a second would divide the top three back to Lance Stroll in fourth as Pierre Gasly found himself in a Racing Point sandwich in fifth.
Charles Leclerc was a respectable seventh in the leading Ferrari, ahead of Alex Albon, who was a second down in eighth in the second Red Bull.
Daniil Kvyat was ninth with Romain Grosjean featuring higher than usual in P10 for Haas.
His position can be explained by a difficult session for Renault and McLaren, who failed to get a car into the would-be Q3 places in qualifying.
Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz were just outside those positions, however, in 11th and 12th, while their respective teammates, Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris, were 17th and 19th.
The reasons for that, the Australian was understood to be trialling a lower downforce package, which has better suited Renault in recent races, while Lando missed a good chunk of running on Friday after his crash in FP2.
Ala Romeo appears more competitive in 13th and 14th, while Nicholas Latifi was 16th in the Williams, this as teammate George Russell only completed one lap due to a brake failure.
Sebastian Vettel’s problems also continued with the German 0.7s slower than teammate Leclerc and in danger of a second straight Q1 exit in 18th.
Interesting stories then up and down the grid, the question is can Verstappen keep Mercedes on their toes in qualifying? We only have to wait a few hours to find out!
Full results from Practice 3 can be seen below:
