The current world championship leader produced a 1m31.300s on soft tyres to beat Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas to the fastest time in FP3 by a whopping 0.747s as Red Bull laid down a marker ahead of qualifying. Bottas had exchanged fastest lap times with Verstappen earlier in the session but on the final qualifying simulation runs, it was the latter who held a clear advantage. Carlos Sainz put his Ferrari an encouraging third - some eight-tenths down on Verstappen’s benchmark - while Sergio Perez was almost a second slower than his teammate in fourth. Having been off the pace all day on Friday, Hamilton struggles continued in final practice with the seven-time world champion only fifth and...
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