Max Verstappen turned up the ante as he went half a second clear of Mercedes in Practice 3 at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver posted a 1m04.591s on his second set of C5 soft tyres to install himself as the clear favourite for pole in qualifying later on Saturday.
Valtteri Bottas took second ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton, who signed a new two-year deal with Mercedes earlier in the day.
The main deficit came in the middle sector and in particular Turn 3, where Verstappen was able to pull three-tenths on both drivers.
Pierre Gasly was just 0.003s behind Hamilton in fourth for AlphaTauri, with Antonio Giovinazzi an impressive fifth for Alfa Romeo.
Ferrari had some moments with both cars as they pushed the limit of the soft tyre, but both drivers were able to reclaim top 10 places in P6 for Carlos Sainz and P9 for Charles Leclerc.
Sergio Perez was a massive 0.8s behind his Red Bull teammate in seventh, just ahead of Fernando Alonso in eighth for Alpine.
Birthday boy Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top 10, as Aston Martin slipped back from their lofty FP2 places on Friday.
Teammate Lance Stroll was just 0.004s slower in 11th, as Yuki Tsunoda dropped to P12 following a big moment at Turn 9 which saw the Japanese lucky to avoid the barriers.
George Russell was 14th as he eyes another Q2 appearance, but had both McLaren’s just behind in 15th and 16th with plenty of pace still in their pocket.
Kimi Raikkonen also looks more competitive than 17th, while the usual trio brought up the field with Mick Schumacher again ahead of Nicholas Latifi.
Nikita Mazepin brought up the field after running off into the gravel in Turn 4.
Full results from Practice 3 can be seen below:
Here’s how we stacked up in the final practice session#AustrianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/7YfbIDcjWJ
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 3, 2021
