At the start of the session, silence on the track was broken by both Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team drivers, each running the medium compound tyres on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, the team keen to extend its impressive form in the AMR23.
The first third of the session, however, saw a mixture of compound tyres used on the track with Max Verstappen soon setting the pace with a lap time of 1:29.882, displacing Alpine BWT driver Pierre Gasly who bagged an early P1. After positive results in Friday’s free practice sessions, the two Alpine drivers were hopeful about the team’s prospects in Jeddah this weekend.
Early on in the session, rookie Nyck De Vries had to pull out of the third practice session due to late issues detected by the Scuderia AlphaTauri engineers, his AT04 guarded in the garage taking on a new power unit. So far the Dutchman hasn’t had the perfect introduction to driving in Formula 1 after having to retire from this season’s opening race in Bahrain and now, sitting out for the entire session.
After a flurry of laps later the two Oracle Red Bull Racing drivers had taken it in turns at the top of the timesheet each of them setting personal bests during the session, with Verstappen quickly claiming back the top position after Sergio Pé rezbeat his team-mate’s time by 0.329 seconds. Alpine drivers Gasly and Esteban Ocon continued to impress throughout the session, holding fast to those top positions behind the Red Bull drivers, but their attempts were soon beaten by both the Aston Martin drivers who look to be maintaining a consistent pace after Fernando Alonso impressed during the first sessions in Jeddah.
Scuderia Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. both remained outside the top ten for the majority of the session, with possibly both drivers taking grid penalties this Sunday today’s qualifying session will determine if the Italians have a fighting chance at scoring on the street circuit.
The McLaren Formula 1 team were showing pace towards the end of the session and was showing improvement from the previous sessions with Lando Norris finishing seventh and Oscar Piastri finishing eighth.
The session closed with all drivers, Yuki Tsunoda excluded, running the soft compound tyre with Verstappen at the top of the time sheets, his team-mate sat behind him 0.613 slower. Aston Martin had a good session after they managed to go second fastest with Alonso and Stroll sat in third and fourth position with Lewis Hamilton close behind Stroll by a tenth of a second. Hamilton’s team-mate George Russell struggled and fell down to eleventh by the end of the session.
Red Bull ended up very much dominant in Free Practice 3, and with qualifying coming up in just a few hours after the session Verstappen could very likely take pole ahead of Sunday’s race.
