Home hero Oscar Piastri tops final F1 Australian GP practice

Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix home hero Oscar Piastri topped the third and final practice session for McLaren with a 1:15.921s effort.

The margins were incredibly tight in Melbourne with Mercedes’ George Russell just 0.039s slower than Piastri and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen only 0.081s slower than the benchmark time.

Oliver Bearman’s tricky weekend for Haas took another wretched turn when he beached his Haas into the Turn 11 gravel trap of the Albert Park circuit.

That mistake proved costly as Bearman’s FP1 crash rendered him unable to compete in FP2 and he desperately needed further running going into qualifying.

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His car was recovered, and the FP3 session resumed after a brief delay in the Red Flag.

Another driver in desperate need of mileage ahead of qualifying was Liam Lawson, but the New Zealander was only able to complete a handful of laps with a technical fault with his Red Bull RB21.

For the remainder of the 18 drivers, the hour-long FP3 session saw drivers commit to several soft tyre push-laps in preparation for Saturday’s qualifying session.

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Behind Piastri and the much improved Russell and Verstappen was Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, FP2’s pacesetter on Friday afternoon, but over two tenths adrift in Saturday’s session.

Mercedes starlet Andrea Kimi Antonelli rounded the top five ahead of the mighty impressive Williams duo of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon.

Ferrari new boy Lewis Hamilton continued his acclimation in eighth with Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsunoda and McLaren’s Lando Norris rounding out the top-10, with the latter having to back out of his final flying lap.

Remarkably, only six tenths covered the top-10 runners, setting things up nicely for qualifying.

Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto looked to show he’s more than a “B-Driver” by putting his car in a credible 11th position, pipping Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was 14th, ahead of Aussie Alpine rookie Jack Doohan and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.

Stroll’s Aston team-mate Fernando Alonso was resigned to a lowly 17th position, 1.3s down on the top time, but Haas’ troubles looked worse as Esteban Ocon was a further tenth back in 18th.

Bearman and Lawson were unable to set times.

READ MORE – How F1 Australian GP practice exposed Haas weaknesses