Max Verstappen tops the times with dominant FP3 performance

Saturday has started off as hoped for Max Verstappen, as he claimed the top spot in the third and final practice session before the Miami Grand Prix.

The Dutchman was dominant from the off and continued to improve upon his lap times with every lap throughout the hour.

Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez put up a fight behind but still finished 0.406 seconds off from the two-time World Champion, as they couldn’t match his 1:27.535 lap that handed him the top spot.

Finishing the session in 10th and 13th, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton struggled to put their Mercedes where they wanted to. Both Brits were heard complaining over the team radio about vibrations at the front of the car and also found themselves riding the curbs too aggressively sometimes in Sector Two.

Verstappen was dominant in the lead, and Leclerc and Perez were battling close behind, alongside Carlos Sainz, who finished in fourth.

The midfield was an exciting one to watch this session, as it was split extremely differently compared to usual. As the session neared its end, Alpine came to life and found themselves within the top five but ended with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly claiming the fifth and sixth spots, ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Niko Hulkenberg in seventh and eighth.

Kevin Magnussen will be annoyed that his teammate overcame him, but will still be somewhat happy with his 11th-place finish, as he was running lower throughout the majority of the session.

Aston Martin looked completely off the improving track pace, as Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were only able to best 12th and 14th respectively.

Bottas’ teammate Guanyu Zhou claimed the 15th spot after a bit of a silent hour on track.

FP3 was a long hour for the four drivers from McLaren and AlphaTauri, with all struggling to find any pace at all. As the track speed ramped up, it was hard to keep up with the rest of the improving pack, with Yuki Tsunoda overcoming the understeer in his car to finish in 16th, Oscar Piastri led Lando Norris for the 18th and 19th spot and Nyck de Vries finished last.

Logan Sargeant also had an extremely quiet session, especially when in comparison to his teammate, and finished in 17th.

Alex Albon was the outlier, as aforementioned, however, and was able to push his Williams to the maximum, ending the session within the top 10 in ninth.