Charles Leclerc on top once again in the final free practice session at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc went top once again in free practice three to put the Scuderia Ferrari in a great position ahead of qualifying at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

After having the quickest time in both free practice one and two, Leclerc continued his great start to the season as he set the fastest time in the last few seconds of free practice three with a 1:29.735 on the soft compound tyre after recording twenty-three laps in the session.

Leclerc pipped his rival Max Verstappen who finished second in the session having only completed twelve laps with his best time being only three hundredths of a second of the Ferrari with a 1:29.768 on the soft tyre also.

Verstappen’s team-mate, Sergio Pérez was third quickest with a 1:29.833 after recording sixteen laps and the other Ferrari man Carlos Sainz Jr. went fourth with a 1:30.009 after completing twenty-two laps.

With Ferrari and Oracle Red Bull Racing clearly ahead of the rest of the pack, Valtteri Bottas for Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN and Esteban Ocon for BWT Alpine F1 Team set the fifth and sixth fastest times of the session as they kept up their current great form going into qualifying later on.

Pierre Gasly recorded the fewest laps out of all the drivers in practice three with just ten due to having a problem with the driveshaft which left him stationary in the exit to the pit lane with around twenty-five minutes left in the session. However, he was still able to get the seventh fastest time being only four tenths of a second of first and will be hoping that the Scuderia AlphaTauri team can get that issue fixed before qualifying.

The rest of the top ten consisted of Kevin Magnussen who had an impressive session for the Haas F1 Team with so little time on the track yesterday after having a hydraulic issue in practice one and having to retire with more mechanical issues in practice two. Fernando Alonso had the ninth best time for Alpine and Yuki Tsunoda completed the top ten for AlphaTauri.

Both Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team and McLaren F1 Team had a disappointing session with the seven time world champion Lewis Hamilton only being able to put up the eleventh best time in the hour, just ahead of Haas’ Mick Schumacher, and his team-mate George Russell struggling down in fourteenth position behind Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu. Mercedes still look like they are having issues with poor-pursing on the straights and lacking the pace that we expect of them.

McLaren did worse than Mercedes and continue to struggle as Daniel Ricciardo finished down in sixteenth at the end of practice three with Lando Norris down in nineteenth.

The attention now turns to qualifying as all the teams hope they can be in the best places possible ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Sunday.