Italian GP: Red Bull’s trouble continue as Lewis Hamilton sets the pace in FP3

Red Bull’s troubles continued in Saturday’s practice at Monza where Max Verstappen was only sixth fastest in a session in which Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes 1-2.

Hamilton, fresh from Mercedes announcing that Kimi Antonelli will replace him next season, clocked a 1:20.117 to beat George Russell by 0.093s with Charles Leclerc P3.

Lewis Hamilton heads Mercedes 1-2 in FP3

As the sun baked down on the Monza circuit, Saturday’s final practice got underway with Valtteri Bottas the first driver out on track but he pitted before setting a time leaving it to Max Verstappen to top the timesheet with a 1:21.5 as the session’s opening gambit.

Sergio Perez made it a Red Bull 1-2 as the team, having experimented with the set-up of the RB20 on Friday, looked to rebound from Friday’s lowly positions where they were outside the top ten.

Red Bull’s reign, though, didn’t last long with McLaren and Mercedes coming to the fore with Oscar Piastri P1 after the first quarter of the session. With lower flatter kerbs in use this weekend after the circuit was revamped, Hamilton chose an interesting line but took a bit too much of the green kerb and went airborne.

Williams rookie Franco Colapinto did well to keep control of his FW46 having run wide, putting wheels on the gravel as the back end snapped on him.

F1 2024 team-mate head-to-head stats ahead of qualifying

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Charles Leclerc , running the soft tyres on his Ferrari, was up in P1 midway through the session with a 1:20.6, a tenth up on George Russell who had been running the medium Pirellis.

And as he did on Friday, then came Alex Albon up into P1 in the Williams!

Verstappen wasn’t impressed with Hamilton, complaining over the radio that the Briton was on the “racing line”. His race engineer GP replied: “Yeah, fairly standard Max.”

But that was just the beginning of his troubles as he also reported: “Drifting a lot on front wheels, in low speed there’s like no grip.”

The Dutchman, running the medium tyres, was down in eighth place, half a second down on the pace-setting Ferraris who went first and second on used tyres with Carlos Sainz ahead of Leclerc before they swapped position.

Piastri and Leclerc were noted by the stewards for an impeding moment with Piastri, seemingly trying to get out of Daniel Ricciardo’s way, moved into the Monegasque driver’s path with Leclerc putting wheels in the dirt.

Bolting on a new set of soft tyres after final set-up changes were made, Hamilton went quickest ahead of Russell with a 1:20.117, putting him 0.093s up on his team-mate. Leclerc was third.

Verstappen, who finished P6 as he kicked up dirt on his final flying lap, reported his car didn’t want to turn in in “low speed” or “medium” corners. As for Sergio Perez, he finished P18.

Late drama for Kevin Magnussen as he was told to “stop, stop, stop of the track” on his in-lap.

Times

1 Lewis HAMILTON 1:20.117
2 George RUSSELL +0.093
3 Charles LECLERC +0.109
4 Oscar PIASTRI +0.135
5 Lando NORRIS +0.145
6 Max VERSTAPPEN +0.251
7 Carlos SAINZ +0.346
8 Alexander ALBON +0.479
9 Franco COLAPINTO +0.788
10 Nico HULKENBERG +0.826
11 Fernando ALONSO +0.851
12 Daniel RICCIARDO +0.960
13 Yuki TSUNODA +1.024
14 Pierre GASLY +1.038
15 Lance STROLL +1.040
16 Kevin MAGNUSSEN +1.091
17 Esteban OCON +1.141
18 Sergio PEREZ +1.170
19 Valtteri BOTTAS +1.240
20 Guanyu ZHOU +1.918

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