Max Verstappen threw down a mighty benchmark to Mercedes in final practice at the French Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver was the only man sub-1m32s, posting an impressive 1m31.300s on his last flying lap of the session to lead Valtteri Bottas by three-quarters of a second.
Mercedes no doubt have plenty of time in their pocket however, as suggested by Carlos Sainz in third for Ferrari.
Sergio Perez remained almost a second slower than Verstappen, but his time was still good enough for fourth, fractionally ahead of Lewis Hamilton in fifth.
Lando Norris made a late improvement to sixth, just in front of the two Alpines as Fernando Alonso led teammate Esteban Ocon.
Pierre Gasly continued to his strong home race weekend in ninth for AlphaTauri, as Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the would-be Q3 order in qualifying.
Charles Leclerc will be looking to find that little extra to make the top 10 from 11th, while Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo look like filling the Q2 places in P12-P15.
Equally, George Russell will want to continue his run of Q2 appearances and was in the mix in 16th.
Yuki Tsunoda could scupper those plans though, as the Japanese driver struggled with track limits at Turn 6, leaving him down in 17th.
The usual trio look set to complete the order with Nicholas Latifi comfortably leading the two Haas cars in 18th.
Mick Schumacher also enjoyed a half-second advantage over teammate Nikita Mazepin in their fight for 19th.
At the front though, Max Verstappen is definitely the man to beat for pole position but given Mercedes’ history at Circuit Paul Ricard, you can’t rule them out yet…
Full results from Practice 3 can be seen below:
