The chequered flag was out at Yas Marina circuit in the third free practice session for the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and it was Lewis Hamilton who held the advantage heading into qualifying – beating Max Verstappen by 0.2s in FP3. That doesn’t tell the whole story, of course. These are unrepresentative daytime conditions while both Hamilton and Verstappen backed out of what were faster laps.
For the second week in a row during a practice session, Hamilton unintentionally blocked Haas driver Nikita Mazepin. The incident occurred as Hamilton exited the pits, with Mazepin forced to take evasive action at Turn 3.
For Scuderia Ferrari it was another rather difficult practice session, with the SF21 cars still lacking pace especially on a qualifying run. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz tried different aerodynamic configurations, with the Spanish driver also using a different nose and front wing for the last 20 minutes of the session. In the end, Carlos finished in P8, with a personal best lap time of 1m24.595s, about 1.3 seconds behind the best lap time of Lewis Hamilton, while Charles finished in tenth place 1m24.758s, behind Daniel Ricciardo.
Qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix takes place at 5pm local time (1pm GMT).
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Here are the complete results from practice three ahead of this weekend’s 2021 F1 World Championship decider at the Yas Marina Circuit.
Results (Classification):
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:23.274
Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing +0.214
Valtteri Bottas Mercedes +0.751
Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing +0.773
Lando Norris McLaren +0.832
Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +0.949
Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri +0.977
Carlos Sainz Scuderia Ferrari +1.321
Daniel Ricciardo McLaren +1.459
Charles Leclerc Scuderia Ferrari +1.484
Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1.547
Esteban Ocon Alpine +1.560
Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo +1.763
Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo +1.774
Fernando Alonso Alpine +1.820
Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin +1.841
George Russell Williams Racing +1.946
Nicholas Latifi Williams Racing +2.048
Mick Schumacher Haas +2.066
Nikita Mazepin Haas +3.058
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