In sunny Jeddah, Max Verstappen was fastest in the third free practice session of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Friday. On his Ferrari debut, Ollie Bearman was 10th, while Guanyu Zhou (Sauber) had a major accident.
Ahead of Fernando Alonso on Thursday evening, Max Verstappen picked up where he left off in Jeddah during free practice 3, the last before qualifying on Friday evening. The Red Bull driver set the fastest time of 1:28.412, ahead of Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) by 0.196. The duo opened up a fine gap, with the other drivers just half a second behind, starting with Sergio Perez (Red Bull, +0.494) and George Russell (Mercedes, +0.552). Lando Norris put his McLaren in 5th place (+0.559).

Results of 3rd free practice session

The big question at the start of the day was how Ollie Bearman would cope with his move into the Ferrari (number 38) to replace Carlos Sainz, who had undergone emergency appendicitis surgery. The response was very positive for the 18-year-old Briton, who became the youngest Ferrari driver in history. He quickly got into the right rhythm, and was able to put in some interesting laps, finishing tenth (+0.894), although this should be treated with caution as he exceeded the track limits on this lap.

The session was also marked by Guanyu Zhou’s high-speed off-track excursion, which led to a lengthy interruption to repair the safety barriers. The Chinese driver, who finished 19th in the session, was uninjured, but his single-seater suffered considerable damage, which could jeopardize his participation in qualifying.

This post is originally from L’Équipe