Turkish GP: Gasly leads Verstappen in wet Practice 3

Pierre Gasly led his former teammate Max Verstappen in a wet final practice for the Turkish Grand Prix.

Morning rain left plenty of standing water around Istanbul Park, but grip levels were still pretty high when drivers ventured out initially on full wets.

It wasn’t too long before Lando Norris was the first man onto intermediates but a few corners were still treacherous, as highlighted by George Russell aquaplaning off at Turn 2, causing a red flag.

Turn 9 and Turn 11 also proved tricky, with Gasly, Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel and Nikita Mazepin all having spins.

Eventually, a drier line emerged and lap times quickly tumbled as the AlphaTauri posted a 1m30.447s to set the pace.

With the high grip, tyre wear quickly set in with the intermediates losing their best performance towards the end.

Max though was still able to improve late on to take second, ahead of Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez in a Honda-powered top three.

Ferrari continued to look strong with Carlos Sainz fourth and Charles Leclerc fifth, ahead of Fernando Alonso, who had a moment going straight on at Turn 1 as he pushed the limits of his Alpine.

Kimi Raikkonen was a solid seventh, and narrowly avoided an incident with Mick Schumacher in the pit-lane after an unsafe release.

Behind the Finn was Yuki Tsunoda, who backed up AlphaTauri’s strong pace in the wet in eighth.

With a dry qualifying expected, Mercedes only did 13 laps between the cars with Valtteri Bottas ninth and Lewis Hamilton 18th.

Esteban Ocon rounded out the top 10 in the second Alpine.

Further down, Schumacher was an impressive 13th for Haas, ahead of the two McLarens of Ricciardo and Norris.

Lance Stroll took pole in the wet in Istanbul last year but was only 16th for Aston Martin in similar conditions.

At the back, the two Williams’ brought up the field with Russell not setting a time due to his off into the gravel.

Full results from Practice 3 can be seen below: