Saudi Arabian GP FP3 Results: What Happened In Free Practice 3

Your Sports Illustrated report of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Free Practice 3.

The third Free Practice Session of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix has ended ahead of qualifying later today.  

The third Free Practice Session of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix finished with Max Verstappen taking the top of the timesheet. Driving on soft tyres, he put in a lap time of 1:28.485.

Standout Moments

Lance Stroll was the first out on the track, followed by his Aston Martin teammate Fernando Alonso, with the majority of teams taking a relaxed approach by not rushing out. Both AMR23s were running on medium tyres initially before changing to hards after one lap.

Fifteen minutes in, George Russell was sitting at the top of the timesheets with a time of 1:30.476 on soft tyres, with Lewis Hamilton just 0.016 behind. Max Verstappen quickly gained top of the sheet with a 1:29.746 lap time on hard tyres. 

Again, it was fairly obvious that Red Bull will dominate this track as Sergio Perez cuts in front of his teammate, albeit on soft tyres. 

Yet again, traffic seems to be a major issue, with several flying laps aborted by drivers who were blocked by slower traffic. 

The last 15 minutes saw Verstappen top the timesheet by over 4-tenths of a second on softs, obliterating everyone on track. In comparison, at this time, Lewis Hamiton was 8-tenths behind. 

Ferrari looks to be running their engines turned down with the drivers sitting 10th and 11th on the timesheet toward the end of the session before reaching 6th and 10th for Leclerc and Sainz respectively. 

Issues

The AlphaTauri team confirmed a couple of minutes into the session that they had detected an issue with Nyck de Vries' car resulting in them needing to replace the power unit. The Dutch driver missed the third practice session as a result of this. 

unfortunately, we’ve detected an issue on @nyckdevries’ car and we are now changing his PU.

as a result, he won’t be participating in FP3 pic.twitter.com/dJ8Rr7kvIs

— Visa Cash App RB F1 Team (@visacashapprb) March 18, 2023

McLaren's Lando Norris was accidentally blocked by Verstappen during a flying lap in a scary bit of driving as both drivers almost collide. The Dutch driver waved a hand of apology to the Papaya-clad Lando, and while the stewards looked closely at this, there will be no further investigations. Of course, this wouldn't be the story if it was during qualifying. 

Fernando Alonso also received a black and white flag for not following commands from race control. 

Conclusion

With drivers finally starting to show us some qualifying simulations, we can see clearly that Red Bull is comfortably on top. Aston Martin is also showing great performance with Alonso looking very capable in the AMR23. 

Lando Norris in his McLaren is also showing good performance with the driver gelling with the track and he and his teammate Oscar Piastri sat well within the top 10 - finally!

Ferrari was the last team to show their mettle, but it was a disappointing run with the Maranello looking to be running low power.

Here's how to watch the qualifying session.

Saudi Arabia FP3 Results

1. Verstappen
2. Perez
3. Alonso
4. Stroll
5. Hamilton
6. Leclerc
7. Norris
8. Piastri
9. Gasly
10. Sainz
11. Russell
12. Zhou
13. Hulkenberg
14. Ocon
15. Albon
16. Sargeant
17. Magnussen
18. Bottas
19. Tsunoda
20. de Vries - (No time)