2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Free Practice 3 Results & Summary

Friday, 08 March 2024 at 15:40

The final Free Practice session ahead of the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix produced very interesting results.

After the first two Free Practice sessions on Thursday, the last Free Practice session took place on Friday ahead of the qualifying, and it wasn't the 20-man grid that we're used to seeing that lined up for the practice session.

Throughout the season, team's reserve drivers are required to get at least on Free Practice session during the season, but this wasn't the case, as Carlos Sainz was forced to miss the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix because of a surgery.

As a result, the Ferrari driver was replaced by F2 driver, Oliver Bearman, who was able to put together a solid FP3 session to place tenth.

However, the last practice session was once again dominated by Red Bull, as Max Verstappen topped the standings with a time of 1:28.412, while his teammate, Sergio Perez, placed third, 0.494 seconds behind his teammate.

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Charles Leclerc was between the two, only 0.196 seconds away from the Dutch driver. On the other side of the standings, Logan Sargeant in Williams didn't drive during the FP3 session, as the team had to fix an issue on his car.

Another unlucky man was Zhou Guanyu, who with only around 16 minutes left on the clock, crashed his Kick Sauber at turn 8, resulting in a red flag, which halted the session for a few minutes, before it resumed with 5 minutes left on the clock.

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That was a big impact for Zhou 💥 Cranes and marshals lifting the car off the track as we look to start running again soon although the FP3 clock is still ticking #F1 #SaudiArabianGP

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George Russell in Mercedes, on the other hand, did quite well, placing his Mercedes to fourth place, while his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, finished the FP3 session ninth.

Aston Martin drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, placed sixth and seventh, respectively, while McLaren drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, placed fifth and eighth, respectively.

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