F1: Verstappen tops tight final Bahrain GP practice

Max Verstappen set the top time over Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez in an engrossing FP3 time attack ahead of qualifying for the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix.

In the heat of Sakhir, teams took their time to emerge, but the track was abuzz with activity after 15 minutes and the benchmarks kept tumbling. Verstappen eventually went fastest with a time of 1m 32.544s – Ferrari’s Leclerc just 0.096s away, after overcoming a spin into the Turn 11 gravel – while Red Bull teammate Perez was 0.25s off in P3.

George Russell took fourth for Mercedes, 0.4s off the pace, having complained of understeer in low-speed corners early on. teammate Lewis Hamilton took sixth, six-tenths off, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz splitting them for P5.

Is Mercedes still sandbagging?  You bet they are. All of a sudden, they are not very far off the pace now, are they?

Haas and Alfa Romeo enjoyed an exciting turn of pace in FP3, with Kevin Magnussen seventh and Alfa’s Valtteri Bottas eighth ahead of team mate Zhou Guanyu.

That left Lance Stroll rounding out the top 10 for Aston Martin.

Practice 3 Results