F1: Verstappen tops final practice for French GP

After Ferrari dominated both French GP practice sessions at Paul Ricard on Friday, F1 points leader Max Verstappen moved to the top in the final practice session ahead of qualifying in two hours.

Verstappen’s lap of 1m32.272s in the #1 Red Bull was 0.354s faster than the #55 Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr. who will start from the back due to engine change grid penalties.

Verstappen was the quickest on both the medium and soft Pirelli tires.

Charles Leclerc was 3rd quick in the #16 Ferrari, 0.637s off the pace.

Lewis Hamilton was 0.983s back in the #44 Mercedes, while Sergio Perez rounded out the top-5 in the #11 Red Bull.  The fact Perez is 1.021s slower than Verstappen is puzzling.

Sainz was the closest chaser but remember he has a grid drop for tomorrow after taking on a raft of new Power Unit components. That leaves Leclerc as the man most likely to hunt the Dutchman down, but he was over six tenths adrift in that session.

Could Ferrari be playing the long game and aiming for a set-up more suited to race pace? Or have Red Bull found an answer to balancing race and qualifying set-ups? There are plenty of things at play, not least who can extract more than one flying lap from a set of the soft compound tires.

Mercedes are still the third-best team, but they are quite some way behind. Can they play catch up in the next hour or so before qualifying begins, or have they focussed more on race pace?  Russell was running a lower downforce setup than teammate Hamilton.  Russell was slightly slower, but he will have more speed on the straights for passing and defending in the race.

Practice 3 Results