F1 News: Piastri fastest in FP3 at Imola, Perez screws everyone

Sergio Perez crashed his Red Bull with 4 minutes to go just when everyone was about to to do qualifying sim runs in Practice 3 for the Emilia Romagna GP at Imola.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Just before Perez crashed when he bounded over the curbs hard in Turn 15, Oscar Piastri got a qualifying SIM run in and set the fastest lap of the session at 1m15.529s.

His McLaren teammate Lando Norris was 2nd quick, 0.300s behind his teammate but he hit traffic on his fast lap

The two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz Jr and Charles Leclerc were 3rd and 4th, 0.538s and 0.558s behind respectively around the tricky Imola circuit

George Russell was 5th quick for Mercedes while Max Verstappen never got a run on the soft tires before his teammate smacked the barriers and brought out the red flag and ended up 6th.

We did not see a full flying lap on fresh softs from everyone, some people had traffic, some had their laps ruined by red flags, others gave up even trying.

The session had two Red Flags. Fernando Alonso wadded up his Aston Martin at the Rivazza corner.

Qualifying of course, and it is an important one. Overtaking is now easy here, so qualifying and track position is incredibly important.

No one has had a smooth FP3, not least Alonso and Perez, so that only adds to the drama heading into qualifying

Emilia Romagna GP Practice 3 Results at Imola