Max Verstappen goes into the French Grand Prix qualifying session as the favourite after opening a 0.747-second gap over the nearest Mercedes, Valtteri Bottas.
With teams looking to keep a set of medium tyres spare, the opening 10 minutes of the session saw nobody leave the pits. The two Haas drivers were only two runners in the following five minutes. The big names emerged from the pits with 35 minutes remaining on the clock. Verstappen managed to get ahead of Bottas by just 0.009 seconds, similar to the second practice session on Friday
With 15 minutes to go until the end of the final free practice session, a great lap from the SF21 of Carlos Sainz (1:32.195) put the Spanish driver in the top 3, an unexpected third for the Maranello team who thus managed to split the two Mercedes and Red Bull cars, although Ferrari is aware that it will be almost impossible to repeat this performance in the qualifying session later this afternoon. But lots of intrigue for qualifying from 2pm, that’s for sure!
Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc did not manage to put a lap togheter on the soft tyres and ended up outside the top ten, with a personal best lap time of 1m32.820s, more than 1.5 seconds off the benchmark of Max Verstappen.
French Grand Prix – Here are the complete results from the third free practice ahead of the 2021 F1 World Championship race from Paul Ricard.
Results (Classification):
Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing – 1:31.300
Valtteri Bottas Mercedes +0.747
Carlos Sainz Scuderia Ferrari +0.895
Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing +0.938
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +0.966
Lando Norris McLaren +1.036
Fernando Alonso Alpine +1.324
Esteban Ocon Alpine +1.381
Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri +1.407
Daniel Ricciardo McLaren +1.459
Charles Leclerc Scuderia Ferrari +1.520
Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo +1.717
Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1.751
Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin +1.900
Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo +2.028
George Russell Williams Racing +2.064
Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +2.124
Nicholas Latifi Williams Racing +2.284
Mick Schumacher Haas +2.843
Nikita Mazepin Haas +3.342
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