French GP: Verstappen jumps clear of Ferrari in Practice 3

Max Verstappen set the benchmark for Ferrari to chase in final practice at the French Grand Prix.

After the Scuderia led both sessions on Friday, the pendulum swung towards the reigning world champion who was quickest on both the medium and soft tyres, posting a best time 1m32.272s on the latter compound.

A reason for Ferrari’s loss of single-lap pace could be a focus on tyre management in the race. This as the Italian team opted to save two new sets of mediums for Sunday compared to Red Bull with two new sets of hards.

On the soft tyres for qualifying, Carlos Sainz was again able to set his best time on the second flying lap in second, three-tenths behind Verstappen.

However, teammate Charles Leclerc couldn’t make his tyres last as he finished a further three-tenths behind in third.

The Monegasque also had a small moment as he spun off entering Turn 12 due to a likely gust of wind.

At Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton was fourth running a high downforce setup on his W13, albeit just a tenth quicker than George Russell in P6 using a lower downforce rear wing for better top speed.

Sergio Perez’s difficult weekend continues, finishing a second off Verstappen’s pace in fifth in the second Red Bull.

A late flier promoted Fernando Alonso upto seventh in the Alpine, with Williams the story of the midfield as Alex Albon sat eighth and Nicholas Latifi 12th.

Lando Norris was ninth for McLaren as Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top 10 in the AlphaTauri.

Everything is to play for in the midfield though with just 0.7s covering 12 drivers from fourth-placed Hamilton to Zhou Guanyu in 15th.

In FP3, back of the grid starts were confirmed for Sainz and also Kevin Magnussen for new power units.

Mick Schumacher was only 19th in the second Haas, sharing the bottom of the timesheet with mentor Sebastian Vettel, who failed to do a soft tyre run due to floor damage.

Full results from Practice 3 can be seen below: