Abu Dhabi GP: Verstappen leads Albon in FP3

The final practice session of the 2020 season saw Verstappen lead Red Bull back to the top of the timesheets, having trailed the Mercedes duo of Valtteri Bottas and Hamilton on Friday evening.

Following a 20-minute lull at the start of the session that saw no drivers take to the track, Verstappen was able to claim top spot with his first run on the soft tyres.

Verstappen shaved a further four-tenths of a second off his best lap time during a first qualifying simulation, outpacing Hamilton by three-tenths of a second, with Bottas sitting third after his initial effort.

After a second qualifying run saw Verstappen fall 0.011 seconds shy of his best time after a lock-up, the Dutchman managed to gain half a second with his final lap of the day.

The time of 1m36.251s comfortably gave Verstappen top spot in the final classification ahead of Albon in the sister Red Bull car, who made a late improvement to finish half a second off his teammate despite reporting “insane” understeer.

Renault pair Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon took third and fourth respectively, separated by just 0.022 seconds, while Lando Norris finished fifth for McLaren.

Mercedes opted against doing any late qualifying simulations with either Hamilton or Bottas, meaning they were shuffled down to sixth and ninth place respectively, separated by Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and McLaren’s Carlos Sainz.

Sergio Perez rounded out the top 10 for Racing Point ahead of AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat. Ferrari’s anticipated struggles continued as Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel finished 12th and 14th, with Pierre Gasly sandwiched between them in the final classification.

George Russell continued to adjust to life back at Williams, finishing 15th thanks to a late improvement on softs that put him almost a second clear of teammate Nicholas Latifi, who ended up 19th.

Alfa Romeo drivers Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen finished 16th and 17th respectively, followed by Kevin Magnussen in the Haas.

Pietro Fittipaldi propped up the timesheets in 20th for Haas, lapping more than seven-tenths of a second off Magnussen’s time.

Results: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2020 - FP3

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Max Verstappen	16	1'36.251			207.731
2	Alex Albon	15	1'36.752	0.501	0.501	206.656
3	Daniel Ricciardo	12	1'36.877	0.626	0.125	206.389
4	Esteban Ocon	15	1'36.899	0.648	0.022	206.342
5	Lando Norris	13	1'36.994	0.743	0.095	206.140
6	Lewis Hamilton	16	1'37.012	0.761	0.018	206.102
7	Lance Stroll	16	1'37.030	0.779	0.018	206.064
8	Carlos Sainz Jr.	12	1'37.068	0.817	0.038	205.983
9	Valtteri Bottas	16	1'37.085	0.834	0.017	205.947
10	Sergio Perez	13	1'37.227	0.976	0.142	205.646
11	Daniil Kvyat	17	1'37.266	1.015	0.039	205.564
12	Charles Leclerc	14	1'37.270	1.019	0.004	205.555
13	Pierre Gasly	18	1'37.371	1.120	0.101	205.342
14	Sebastian Vettel	16	1'37.728	1.477	0.357	204.592
15	George Russell	16	1'37.886	1.635	0.158	204.262
16	Antonio Giovinazzi	16	1'37.900	1.649	0.014	204.232
17	Kimi Raikkonen	16	1'38.269	2.018	0.369	203.465
18	Kevin Magnussen	14	1'38.457	2.206	0.188	203.077
19	Nicholas Latifi	17	1'38.765	2.514	0.308	202.444
20	Pietro Fittipaldi	15	1'39.159	2.908	0.394	201.639
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