Fernando Alonso claims first place in FP3, ahead of Verstappen by 0.005

Fernando Alonso has finished on top of the timings charts in FP3, repeating what was done in FP2 yesterday. The Spaniard finished ahead of the Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

Aston Martin fighting amongst the top

No one is really sure how long this could last, but at this moment of the Grand Prix weekend, Aston Martin have managed to find pace that other teams can't consistently match. Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso both managed to top FP3 at points during the session, with the duo ending in first and seventh place respectively. Red Bull have the pace to match Aston Martin, but started the session on hard tyres so looked like no match for the British team until switching to soft tyres. Max Verstappen finished second behind only Alonso and Perez in third.

As for those around them, it was Mercedes that made the most of the practice session after a downforce switch on the car. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were able to best the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, with the four drivers finishing in fourth, sixth, fifth and eighth respectively.

Middle order all over the place!

Alpine and Alfa Romeo had glimpses of speed, but it wasn't enough come to the end of the session. Pierre Gasly finished in 10th, Esteban Ocon was one spot behind in 11th with Guanyu Zhou close behind in 12th and Valtteri Bottas struggled towards the end, finishing in 17th.

McLaren struggle for majority of session

It was an extremely quiet session for McLaren as both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri struggled to find any pace in their car until the last 10 minutes of FP3. The Brit was the first driver on the track at the start of the session but was unable to find any time until the 50-minute mark when he and his Australian teammate pushed into the top 10 but finished in 13th and 9th respectively.

Haas and AlphaTauri joined the British team in the bottom half of the pecking order for the majority of the session but, much like McLaren, found some pace in the dying minutes. Kevin Magnussen lead the way in 14th, followed by Niko Hulkenberg in 15th and the AlphaTauri duo of Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries claimed the 16th and 20th positions.

Williams finished ahead of only de Vries, with Logan Sargeant besting Alex Albon for 18th.