FP3 Report – Final Pointers heading into Qualifying

By Camille Lebez-Leroy

Piastri Leads the Way as McLaren Set the Pace in Bahrain

The final practice session in Bahrain got off quietly, with drivers slowly driving to the track. Oliver Bearman was the first one to go out on hard tyres, followed by his teammate. Haas drivers had a mixed day, Ocon struggled with bouncing, while Bearman looked pretty strong. The new floor that they introduced in Japan, seems to work well.

This weekend, Ferrari put a new floor on both cars. Hamilton started his session on used softs tyres, the Scuderia was the only team in FP3 to use three different sets of tyres. As the session progressed and the temperature dropped the grip got more and more intense.

Bearman found the track quite challenging, especially after missing the first practice session yesterday, he then dedicated his session to long runs. The two Alpine drivers used mediums, they were probably working on race simulation laps. With a two-stop race predicted, practicing the long stunt is very crucial.

The early lap times were far away from yesterday’s benchmarks. Norris was briefly the fastest, before Piastri took over, he went almost half a second quicker than his teammate. Verstappen aborted his first run after being unhappy with his car’s balance. In the mean time, Russell stayed quite a bit in his garage before spinning on his first lap and reporting that there was almost no grip.

A brief VSC appeared when Hulkenberg stopped on track. Once it ended, many drivers switched to new softs tyres to practice some quick laps for this afternoon’s qualifying session. Verstappen briefly topped the time sheet, but was rapidly beaten by Gasly, and then by Piastri, who drove an incredible lap over a second clear of the rest.

Russell, Norris, and Leclerc all improved pretty late in the session, but none could get close to the Aussie driver. Hamilton, was still struggling, and finished in tenth. Rookie Hadjar continued to impress by slotting his car in seventh, while Tsunoda’s only flying lap put him in 19th position.

Since the beginning of the weekend McLaren have been dominant, with Piastri leading all three practice sessions at a track where the papaya team hasn’t stood on the podium since 2010. All eyes will be turned on the two McLaren teammates as we are heading into qualifying.