FP3: Verstappen edges Ferrari drivers in final practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Monaco, Monte Carlo Circuit

Red Bull's Max Verstappen topped the thrid and final practice for the 67th Monaco Grand Prix, beating the Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton ended up 7th fastest.

The third practice session started quietly as drivers waited in the garages. When the track action intensified, Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz immediately demonstrated the speed of their SF21 around the narrow streets of the Principality, continuing their impressive form from Thursday.

After the first runs, Leclerc found himself on the top of the timesheets with Max Verstappen and Sainz directly behind. The Mercedes drivers of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas had difficulties with the tyre temperatures and failed to endanger the leading drivers.

The FP3 was truncated by two red flags, the first for Nicholas Latifi's crash at Swimming Pool with 15 minutes remaining. When the session re-started, drivers quickly returned to the track to use the dying stages of the session ahead of the all-important qualifying.

Verstappen was able to find half a second on his previous best time, ending the session fastest with a time of 1m11.294. Sainz and Leclerc failed to find significant improvements on their second set of fresh soft tyres, finishing second and third respectively.

With his last effort, Bottas climbed up the order to end up fourth fastest with a time of 1m11.765, posting the first sub 1m12 Mercedes lap time so far over the weekend.

Alfa Romeo delivered a strong showing with both of their drivers posting promising lap times on the second set of the C5 compound. The closing stages saw Kimi Räikkönen finishing eighth and Antonio Giovinazzi eleventh fastest.

The session ended prematurely as Mick Schumacher was caught out in Turn 4 with the incident bringing out the red flag. The Swiss born German racing driver carried too much speed into the corner located at the Casino Square and was unable to catch the rear end of his Haas Ferrari, crashing into the barriers.

The damage indicated that the American team would have to fight against the time if it wants to repair the German’s car ahead of the qualifying session. Haas has already confirmed that Schumacher "won’t compete in this afternoon’s #MonacoGP Quali session, due to chassis damage sustained in the FP3 accident."

The session was not re-started as only two minutes were left on the clock.