Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc displaced Mercedes from the top spot in the third practice session of F1 Monaco GP with Valtteri Bottas ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the Top 3.
With a day’s break, action resumed in F1 Monaco GP weekend at Monte Carlo with FP3 session on Saturday as Ferrari put a slight brake on Mercedes charge with Leclerc (1m11.265s) ahead of Bottas (1m11.318s) and Hamilton (1m11.478s) in the Top 3.
Leclerc looked comfortable to set the pace even though the Monegasque was put under investigation for speeding under the Virtual Safety Car, which was deployed for his teammate Sebastian Vettel, who crashed at Turn 1 early in the session.
The German could only manage seven laps to end up 14th with a 1m12.583 lap. While Ferrari and Mercedes headed the way, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen (1m11.539s) finished fourth with Pierre Gasly (1m11.738s) in fifth.
The Renault drivers looked to be fighting with each other behind the Top 3 teams but Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi’s (1m12.170s) late quick lap beat the rest of the pack to be sixth as he pushed Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat (1m12.194s) to seventh.
A late lap from Haas’ Kevin Magnussen (1m12.270s) helped him to be eighth with Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen (1m12.308s) dropping to ninth and Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon (1m12.338s) rounding out the Top 10.
The late improvements pushed Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg (1m12.489s) and Daniel Ricciardo (1m12.519s) to 11th and 12th with Haas’ Romain Grosjean (1m12.566s) in 13th ahead of Vettel with the McLaren duo following.
It wasn’t a great run for McLaren along with the Racing Point drivers with Carlos Sainz (1m12.862s) in 15th from Lando Norris (1m12.914s), while Sergio Perez (1m13.232s) was 16th from Lance Stroll (1m13.622s) – the latter having an off at Turn 1.
The two-by-two sequence was completed by Williams eventually with George Russell (1m14.086s) in 19th and Robert Kubica (1m14.305s) 20th.