FP3: Bottas puts his dominant W11 to the top

F1 Grand Prix, GP Italy, Autodromo Nazionale di Monza

Mercedes continued to set the pace at Monza with Valtteri Bottas posting the fastest time of the session. McLaren delivered the biggest surprise of the final practice with Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris ending up second and third fastest.

18 minutes had to pass before a timed lap appeared on the timing board. It was McLaren’s Carlos Sainz who posted the first timed lap with a 1m21.875 on the mediums. The Spaniard managed to shave off three tenths of a second on his next hot lap.

Ferrari drivers continued to struggle for pace with Charles Leclerc posting a time of 1m21.766 despite being on the soft compound. His teammate Sebastian Vettel was three tenths of a second slower than the Monegasque.

When Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas joined the track action, they quickly jumped to the sharp end of the field. Bottas recorded a time of 1m20.622 on Pirelli’s C4 compound on his second hot lap, pipping his teammate by 38 thousands of a second.

Following a difficult Friday for Max Verstappen, the Red Bull driver showed a much improved speed. The Dutchman took over the lead on the leaderboard with a time of 1m20.456 despite using the Yellow medium rubber.

Mercedes drivers were the first to roll out on to the track on the second fresh set of tyres as they wanted to have a clean track during their qualifying simulation. Using every inch of the Parabolica corner, Bottas improved his previous best lap to 1m20.089 that was enough to top the session.

Despite using and practising the slip-streaming, Ferrari drivers failed to keep up with the pace. Leclerc ended up 11th fastest, over eight tenths of a second off the pace while Vettel finished in 15th spot, one place behind Haas driver Romain Grosjean.

There was a slight interruption to the action as red flag was deployed with eight minutes to go. It was Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault R.S.20 that endured technical issues at the Variante della Roggia. The Australian had to park his car on the road between Turn 6 and the first Lesmo corner.

When the action resumed, McLaren driver Carlos Sainz used the dying minutes of the session by jumping to the second place, setting a time of 1m20.318, beating his teammate Lando Norris by just 94 thousands of a second.