Sakhir GP: Verstappen heads Bottas in FP3

After seeing Mercedes debutant Russell lead both practice sessions on Friday at the Bahrain International Circuit, Verstappen was able to lead Red Bull to the head of the timesheets in FP3 on Saturday evening.

Verstappen spent the first half of the session focusing on hard tyre running, leaving him half a second behind early pace-setter Bottas, who ran almost four-tenths of a second clear of Russell on the soft tyre.

Verstappen had a brief spin at Turn 2 early in the session, losing the rear of his Red Bull RB16 after getting on the power, but avoided hitting the wall or any other cars.

Mercedes opted to complete its qualifying simulations earlier than Red Bull, giving Bottas the chance to improve his lap time, albeit losing a couple of tenths of a second after running wide at the final corner.

It left the door open for Verstappen to snatch top spot away upon completing his qualifying simulation on the soft compound tyre, recording a fastest time of 54.064 seconds to give him P1 by two-tenths of a second.

Bottas ended the session second, while Russell slumped to seventh after struggling to match his team-mate’s pace through his low fuel runs, eventually finishing six-tenths of a second off Verstappen’s benchmark.

It allowed Pierre Gasly to continue AlphaTauri’s impressive showing ahead of the Sakhir Grand Prix as the Frenchman finished third-fastest overall, 0.363 seconds down on Verstappen.

Esteban Ocon was one of the last drivers to complete a qualifying run, but made use of the rubbered-in track to take fourth for Renault, while McLaren’s Lando Norris rounded out the top five.

Alexander Albon recovered from having two lap times deleted to finish sixth in the sister Red Bull car ahead of Russell, with the Racing Point pair of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll following in eighth and ninth place. Carlos Sainz Jr. completed the top 10 for McLaren.

Antonio Giovinazzi finished 11th for Alfa Romeo ahead of Daniil Kvyat, who struggled to match AlphaTauri team-mate as he finished 12th ahead of Charles Leclerc - who spun late in the session - and Daniel Ricciardo.

Sebastian Vettel’s session came to an early end after Ferrari opted to change his power unit as a precaution ahead of qualifying, with the four-time world champion ending FP3 in 15th.

Kimi Raikkonen took 16th for Alfa Romeo ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen, with Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi following in 17th and 18th place for Haas and Williams respectively.

Pietro Fittipaldi and Jack Aitken propped up the timesheets at the end of FP3, although both finished within three-tenths of a second of their teammates.

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	km/h
1	Max Verstappen	23	54.064		235.920
2	Valtteri Bottas	20	54.270	0.206	235.024
3	Pierre Gasly	24	54.427	0.363	234.346
4	Esteban Ocon	21	54.453	0.389	234.235
5	Lando Norris	15	54.606	0.542	233.578
6	Alex Albon	22	54.629	0.565	233.480
7	George Russell	20	54.664	0.600	233.330
8	Sergio Perez	20	54.678	0.614	233.271
9	Lance Stroll	18	54.693	0.629	233.207
10	Carlos Sainz Jr.	16	54.720	0.656	233.092
11	Antonio Giovinazzi	20	54.845	0.781	232.560
12	Daniil Kvyat	23	54.850	0.786	232.539
13	Charles Leclerc	21	54.854	0.790	232.522
14	Daniel Ricciardo	15	54.857	0.793	232.509
15	Sebastian Vettel	17	54.858	0.794	232.505
16	Kimi Raikkonen	20	55.171	1.107	231.186
17	Kevin Magnussen	19	55.347	1.283	230.451
18	Nicholas Latifi	21	55.493	1.429	229.845
19	Pietro Fittipaldi	21	55.666	1.602	229.130
20	Jack Aitken	23	55.670	1.606	229.114
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