Verstappen third in final free practice in Spielberg

Published on 04 July 2020 by Kees-Jan Koster

Max Verstappen finished the third free practice in the run-up to the Austrian Grand Prix in third position. The Dutchman did during the sixty minutes during session twenty laps, with the fastest lap of 1:04.130 on soft tyres. Mercedes was with Lewis Hamilton (1:04.130) and Valtteri Bottas (1:04.277) the quickest on the 4.318-kilometre-long Red Bull Ring.

Under a partially clouded sky, the third and final free practice kicks off. Lando Norris is the first to come out on track, quickly followed by the drivers of Hass and AlphaTauri. Max Verstappen stays in the opening phase, just like many of the other drivers, in the garage.

After more than fifteen minutes it slowly gets busier on the Red Bull Ring, and Max also leaves the pits. On a set of medium tyres, the Dutchman sets a 1:05.658, taking fourth position. He is able to improve this time with more than two tenths to a 1:05.453.

After almost half an hour the first red flag of the season is brought out. Nicholas Latifi loses control over his Williams when exiting the first corner, hitting the barriers. It was quite a hard blow, but the damage to the FW34 seems to be limited to the front. Latifi exits the car unharmed and returns to his team.

With twenty-six minutes to go the light on the end of the pitlane turns green again and the teams continue their business. Max comes out straight away and sets his personal best time of 1:05.339 on the medium tyre, good for fourth position. The gap to Lewis Hamilton (P1) is at that time two tenths of a second.

Then Ferrari quickly takes over the first two places on the leaderboard, even though the times of Charles Leclerc (1:04.703) and Sebastian Vettel (1:04.851) are set on the soft tyres. After this Mercedes also changes to the softs. After their timed lap the black cars lead the leaderboard with a large margin. Lewis Hamilton takes over P1 with a 1:04.130, teammate Valtteri Bottas finishes with a 1:04.277 in second position.

Also Verstappen comes out on track in the final phase of the session on a set of soft tyres and sets a 1:04.413 (P3), ending between the Mercedes and Ferraris. The Dutchman is three tenths short of the fastest time of Hamilton. Sergio Pérez ends in fourth position behind Max. This confims that Racing Point’s ‘copy’ of last year’s Mercedes works well for them.

After the session finishes the top six if formed by Lewis Hamilton (1:04.130), Valtteri Bottas (+0.147), Max Verstappen (+0.283), Sergio Pérez (+0.475), Charles Leclerc (+0.573) and Alexander Albon (+0.595). Qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix will start at 15:00.

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Results third free practice Austria: