Max Verstappen was fastest in FP3 of F1 Saudi Arabian GP ahead of Charles Leclerc, as Oliver Bearman has his first run.
Reigning world champion Verstappen bolted on a set of soft tyres – the Red Bull driver running just two sets of the red-walled tyres during the one-hour of running – to clock a 1m28.412s. That was 0.146s clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – who has a temporary team mate for the rest of the weekend with reserve Oliver Bearman standing in for Carlos Sainz who has appendicitis.
Bearman – who was due to start the F2 race on pole for Prema before relinquishing that role for this weekend – delivered an assured performance after his late call-up, the Briton finishing 10th quickest. Sergio Perez made it two Red Bulls in the top-three, but he was 0.3s adrift of Leclerc’s and nearly half a second behind his team mate Verstappen.
Zhou caused a stoppage for around 10 minutes when he lost control of his Sauber at Turn 7, the Chinese driver losing control and hitting the barriers hard to cause significant damage. Sauber now face a race against time to get that car fixed in time to take part in qualifying later on Friday.
When the session got back under way, George Russell improved to end up fourth quickest – the leading Mercedes, with his team mate and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton ninth. Lando Norris was a fraction behind – just 0.07s in fact – in the McLaren with Fernando Alonso leading Aston Martin team mate Lance Stroll in sixth and seventh respectively, ahead of Oscar Piastri.
Elsewhere, Logan Sargeant lost a huge amount of track time when he clipped the wall, causing enough damage to his Williams to end his session early without having set a timed lap. The Alpines looked more competitive than in Bahrain, with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon 12th and 14th respectively, with Yuki Tsunoda outpacing RB team mate Daniel Ricciardo by just over a tenth of a second.
New PU elements for Albon, Bottas: https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2024%20Saudi%20Arabian%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20New%20PU%20elements%20for%20this%20Competition.pdf
Here’s news on Carlos Sainz missing rest of F1 Saudi Arabian GP
Here’s what was said after Thursday in F1 Saudi Arabian GP
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact
[Note: The story is as per press release]
