Max Verstappen topped the timesheets ahead of qualifying in a tyre-dominated final practice at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Mercedes came out of the gate fast at Jeddah Corniche Circuit, with Lewis Hamilton setting an impressive early benchmark on the hard tyres.
Red Bull, meanwhile, focused on the soft compound with Verstappen eventually pipping his championship rival into P1 on his fourth flying lap.
When the Briton switched to the red-striped rubber though, he couldn’t improve on his initial time on the hards leaving him second fastest.
Hamilton also had two spooky moments as he impeded Pierre Gasly on a fast lap approaching Turn 1, then Nikita Mazepin narrowly avoided a very big accident through Turn 5.
? Hamilton has been summoned for a second time for the incident involving Mazepin ? pic.twitter.com/DDi53pDwcF
— WTF1 (@wtf1official) December 4, 2021
As for Verstappen, he put on a second set of softs and would find the key to unlocking the performance on the first timed lap, albeit only improving by a tenth before shaving another 0.005s off to set his eventual best of 1m28.100s.
Honda power would dominate the top five with Sergio Perez third in the second Red Bull, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda and Gasly in the two AlphaTauri’s.
Valtteri Bottas was 0.9s off the pace in sixth, then came the two Ferrari’s and Esteban Ocon separated by just 0.076s in P7-P9.
Not far behind was Lando Norris in 10th ahead of Fernando Alonso in 11th and the two Alfa Romeo’s in 12th and 13th.
Daniel Ricciardo was 14th with a step back to the two Aston Martins and two Williams’ in P15-18.
Mick Schumacher was 19th, fractionally ahead of Mazepin at the back of the field in the two Haas’.
Full results from Practice 3 can be seen below:
Here’s how the third and final practice session played out…
So, what are your early predictions for qualifying? ?#SaudiArabianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/ZZ1x1jRkKl
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 4, 2021