There was one final hour of running at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit before the qualifying session for the 2021 Saudi Arabian GP. And it was a slightly different picture to what we saw yesterday: as far as the soft-tyre running goes, it seems Max Verstappen and Red Bull have an edge. The Dutchman denies Lewis Hamilton a practice hat-trick with a best lap of 1:28.100, as Hamilton finishes 0.2s and set his best lap on the hard compound. Sergio Perez third, with Yuki Tsunoda fourth. Valtteri Bottas sixth in the second Mercedes.
Great job by the Scuderia Ferrari mechanics who worked during the night to repair the SF21 car of Charles Leclerc after the Monegasque driver’s crash in the second practice session. Charles and Carlos completed several runs on soft and hard tyres, which seem to be the most important compounds for this weekend event in Saudi Arabia. The race simulation of the SF21 cars was not bad, once again close to the laps times of McLaren and AlphaTauri, but the Maranello team seems to be slightly behind on a fast lap, which should make thinhs difficult in the upcoming qualifying session, as drivers were struggling to turn these soft tyres on straight away.
Once again Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz ended the session with similar lap times: the Monegasque driver finished P7, with a personal best lap time which was one second slower than the benchmark of Max Verstappen, while Carlos Sainz finished right behind his Maranello teammate, just a few tenths slower on his fastest lap in this FP3.
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – Here are the complete results from free practice three ahead of this weekend’s 2021 F1 World Championship race in Jeddah.
Results (Classification):
Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing -1:28.100
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +0.214
Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing +0.529
Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +0.541
Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri +0.615
Valtteri Bottas Mercedes +0.919
Charles Leclerc Scuderia Ferrari +1.001
Carlos Sainz Scuderia Ferrari +1.049
Esteban Ocon Alpine +1.077
Lando Norris McLaren +1.200
Fernando Alonso Alpine +1.318
Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo +1.490
Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo +1.589
Daniel Ricciardo McLaren +1.617
Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1.930
George Russell Williams Racing +1.934
Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin +2.196
Nicholas Latifi Williams Racing +2.266
Mick Schumacher Haas +2.833
Nikita Mazepin Haas +2.879
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