The final Malaysian Grand Prix practice session at Sepang provided the clearest clues yet ahead of qualifying, although the competitive picture remains far from settled. Mercedes appears to have finally found a convincing operating window, with Red Bull still close behind, while Ferrari and McLaren remain considerably harder to interpret.
The most significant uncertainty surrounds Ferrari. The SF-26 looked noticeably more stable than it had on Friday, but its straight-line speed and performance through the faster corners remained weak. At the same time, the team’s programme appeared heavily focused on race preparation, making it difficult to understand how much performance is still being held back for qualifying.
Mercedes finds its performance window in Sepang FP3
Kimi Antonelli ended the session with highly convincing pace and used a clearly more aggressive power-unit setting on his final attempt than during the earlier stages of FP3. Mercedes had worked through some significant swings between understeer and oversteer while trying to understand the major updates introduced for this weekend, but the car now appears to have reached a much more effective balance.
The most impressive evidence came in the second sector, where Mercedes was particularly strong through the high-speed corners. This is likely where the effect of the newly fitted aerodynamic package became most visible, providing greater vertical load and a platform that, once properly balanced, allowed the drivers to carry substantial speed through corners with high lateral acceleration.
George Russell remained well behind his team-mate for the time being, although at least a couple of tenths of his roughly six-tenth deficit appeared to come from using the power unit even more conservatively.
Red Bull remains Mercedes’ closest rival
Red Bull continued to show impressive consistency. The telemetry indicated that Max Verstappen was extremely fast on the straights, comfortable in the quicker sections and able to limit the losses effectively in the slower corners.
The Red Bull did not necessarily look perfectly optimised for every part of Sepang, which would be understandable given some of the known limitations of its aerodynamic platform. Even so, the overall compromise found by the Milton Keynes engineers appeared very effective. The car remained demanding, but Max Verstappen was able to manage it well enough to emerge as Kimi Antonelli’s most credible challenger.
Ferrari more stable, but how much performance remains?
Ferrari was probably the most difficult car to assess during FP3. Compared with Friday, the behaviour of the SF-26 improved significantly. The rear axle looked far more stable, with less movement on corner exit, and both drivers appeared much less cautious behind the wheel than they had during the opening two practice sessions.
Importantly, that improved rear stability did not seem to come at the expense of the front end. There were no obvious signs of weakness from the front axle, producing what appeared to be a convincing balance between the two ends of the car. From a pure drivability perspective, the SF-26 therefore appeared to be working well. Ferrari’s broader technical development can be followed through the ScuderiaFans Ferrari technical analysis section.
The problem was outright speed. Ferrari looked extremely slow on the straights and through the faster corners, resulting in a particularly weak middle sector. Charles Leclerc also showed very heavy energy harvesting approaching Turn 10, another indication that the power-unit usage seen during FP3 was unlikely to represent the car’s maximum potential.
The impression was that Ferrari was still running at a relatively low power level, although it remained difficult to determine why. The conservative approach could simply have been related to reliability management in the high temperatures, but another possibility was that the team was trying to control rear-tyre temperatures by reducing the wheelspin naturally associated with the high torque generated by these power units.
Tyre management has been one of the defining variables of the Sepang weekend, with the behaviour of the available compounds explored in more detail in the analysis of why Pirelli’s Sepang tyres may suit the SF-26.
Ferrari’s long runs on the Hard compound also suggested that the team’s work was almost entirely orientated towards the race. That approach would mean accepting some compromise over a single qualifying lap, particularly on a weekend where qualifying is expected to be close to irrelevant compared with the importance of race pace and tyre management. Practice pace and stint trends can be compared through the ScuderiaFans F1 Practice & Long-Run Analysis.
McLaren still difficult to assess on the Soft tyre
McLaren was similarly difficult to interpret. Its Medium-tyre time attack around the middle of the session looked very competitive, but when the team switched to the Soft compound and the moment came to significantly lower the lap time, the MCL40 once again disappeared from the leading references.
The aerodynamic load appeared to be present and the car looked well balanced, but its absolute performance remained difficult to predict, much like Ferrari. Another unanswered question concerns how much additional performance McLaren can extract from its power unit in qualifying, after making significant steps in engine deployment when it mattered during recent race weekends.
Sepang qualifying remains wide open
FP3 therefore left several realistic candidates for the front row. Sepang is particularly sensitive to changing conditions, while the tyres are struggling to maintain their performance through an entire push lap. That could cause the gaps in qualifying to become larger than expected.
For the same reasons, however, the single-lap competitive order may not necessarily reflect the true hierarchy over the race distance. The detailed differences in speed, braking and corner performance can be explored with the ScuderiaFans F1 Qualifying Telemetry & Corner Comparison.
Kimi Antonelli heads into qualifying as the leading candidate for pole position based on the evidence from FP3, with Max Verstappen expected to challenge closely. The major unanswered question is whether George Russell, Ferrari and McLaren can reveal enough additional performance to join that fight when the cars are finally pushed to their qualifying limits.
Leave a Reply