Championship leader Charles Leclerc completed a sweep of practice sessions for Formula 1’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as Mercedes struggled.
Leclerc posted a time of 1:29.735s to finish a mere 0.033s faster than reigning World Champion Max Verstappen.
Verstappen had been on course for a quicker lap after being three-tenths up on his personal best following the first two sectors but he went wide through Turn 22 and aborted his effort.
Sergio Perez finished third for Red Bull, ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, with Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas continuing his encouraging start to 2022 by placing fifth.
By contrast Bottas’ former team, Mercedes, had a difficult showing.
Lewis Hamilton was the quickest Mercedes car, in 11th place, nine-tenths of a second down on pacesetter Leclerc.
His team-mate George Russell was in 14th while the six Mercedes-powered customer cars filled out the bottom six positions, as Aston Martin, McLaren and Williams struggled for performance.
Esteban Ocon classified sixth for Alpine while there were more reliability gremlins at midfield rival AlphaTauri.
Pierre Gasly, who retired in Bahrain, suffered a suspected driveshaft issue as he tried to leave the pit lane and stopped his AT03 shortly after pit exit.
Haas’ Kevin Magnussen was eighth while Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top 10.
Tsunoda’s car was equipped with fresh power unit components, including a new Internal Combustion Engine, following an issue during second practice on Friday.
The session came following a tumultuous 24 hours for Formula 1, after Friday’s attack on a nearby Aramco facility, which led to several meetings that only concluded in the early hours of Saturday.
Drivers reached a resolution to continue the weekend schedule as normal after concerns were assuaged by senior Formula 1 figures and security officials from Saudi Arabia.
Qualifying for Formula 1’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is scheduled for 20:00 local time
Position
Driver
Team
Time Gap
Laps
1
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
1:29.735
23
2
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
1:29.768 0.033
12
3
Sergio Perez
Red Bull
1:29.833 0.098
16
4
Carlos Sainz Jr
Ferrari
1:30.009 0.274
22
5
Valtteri Bottas
Alfa Romeo
1:30.030 0.295
22
6
Esteban Ocon
Alpine
1:30.139 0.404
16
7
Pierre Gasly
AlphaTauri
1:30.148 0.413
11
8
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
1:30.262 0.527
18
9
Fernando Alonso
Alpine
1:30.296 0.561
17
10
Yuki Tsunoda
AlphaTauri
1:30.415 0.680
19
11
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
1:30.707 0.972
17
12
Mick Schumacher
Haas
1:30.765 1.030
17
13
Guanyu Zhou
Alfa Romeo
1:30.946 1.211
20
14
George Russell
Mercedes
1:30.983 1.248
15
15
Lance Stroll
Aston Martin
1:31.067 1.332
18
16
Daniel Ricciardo
McLaren
1:31.186 1.451
16
17
Alex Albon
Williams
1:31.374 1.639
16
18
Nico Hulkenberg
Aston Martin
1:31.424 1.689
18
19
Lando Norris
McLaren
1:31.529 1.794
17
20
Nicholas Latifi
Williams
1:31.992 2.257
13
Why is Best Driver in History of F1 Lewis Hamilton so slow? I thought his cars had nothing to do with his success in previous seasons?