FP3: Alonso tops final practice as Mercedes picks up pace

Following his robust displaying on Friday, Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso continues to dwell up to the hype round him as he finishes prime of the timesheet with the Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez ending P2 and P3 respectively.

With the third and final practice happening in daylight, the vast majority of groups took it simple firstly of the 60-minute session, staying within the storage for the opening minutes.

Most of the drivers targeting the delicate tyres within the session, attempting to save lots of the medium and the arduous compound for the race as the C3 compound has proved a superb compound for a one-lap qualifying run, however not for a race run.

Fernando Alonso led the way in which following the primary runs and the Spaniard was in a position to enhance his finest time along with his second recent set of C3s, setting a benchmark of 1m32.340s. Reigning world champion Max Verstappen was on the right track to set the most effective lap time of the session, however he went barely huge on the final nook which noticed him lose the essential final tenth of a second that may have been sufficient for the Dutchman to finish up quickest.

Sergio Perez was a tenth again within the different Red Bull, simply forward of a much-improved Mercedes. The Anglo-German outfit struggled for pace yesterday, however they appeared to have made large inroads when it comes to steadiness of their W14 with each Lewis Hamilton and George Russell seemingly having fun with the session.

The seven-time world champion completed simply two tenths of a second down on Alonso’s benchmark whereas his teammate ended up sixth quickest.

Charles Leclerc was fifth within the lead Ferrari along with his teammate Carlos Sainz taking solely eighth behind Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll. The Scuderia appeared to battle for pace within the final 60-minute session with their new automotive, the SF23 showing to be solely the fourth quickest contender across the Bahrain International Circuit.

The Maranello-based crew was the one outfit alongside Haas to hold out race simulations on heavy gas run after each groups struggled with tyre managemenent each throughout testing and in yesterday’s practice classes.

The mid-pack groups had been intently matched as soon as once more with McLaren’s new recruit Oscar Piastri main the way in which behind Aston Martin, Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. 7

Alfa Romeo turned the primary outfit to placed on the second set of recent tyres. The Swiss-Italian squad’s Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu was twelfth along with his crew mate Valtteri Bottas, who made an important mistake on his qualifying simulation lap, completed down in seventeenth.

Lando Norris ended up thirteenth quickest, with the Haas pair of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg in 14th and fifteenth respectively simply behind.

AlphaTauri had one other fairly session with Yuki Tsunoda setting the sixteenth quickest lap whereas his new crew mate Nyck de Vries ending down in final place. The Williams duo Logan Sargeant and Alex Albon ended up 18th and nineteenth quickest respectively with the Grove-based outfit’s new automotive showing arguably a lot nearer to the mid-pack than it was the case in 2022.