FP3: Verstappen dominates in final Monaco practice as Hamilton crashes upgraded Mercedes

F1 Grand Prix, GP Monaco, Monte Carlo Circuit

Max Verstappen continued to impress on the narrow streets of Monte Carlo, pipping his teammate Sergio Perez in the third and final practice at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Red Bull displayed ominous performance in the final practice session in Monte Carlo after Max Verstappen set the benchmark with a time of 1m12.776s to head his teammate Sergio Perez by just under a tenth of a second.

With a late push lap, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll finished the final 60-minute session in P3 while his teammate Fernando Alonso ended up down in P14. The Spaniard’s low-key performance was down to the messy end of the session that saw interruptions caused by Kevin Magnussen and Lewis Hamilton.

Following his promising performance and a late crash on Friday, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was unable to match Red Bull’s pace today, putting his SF-23 in P4. His teammate Charles Leclerc struggled for pace, constantly complaining about bottoming and an unstable rear end of his car, and took only seventh.

Lando Norris was once again quick with his updated McLaren, setting the fifth fastest time ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.

Hamilton was the last driver to start his day with spending the first twenty minutes of the session in the box. The Briton displayed promising pace in his upgraded W14, but he endured a bad end to his practice as he crashed into the barrier at the exit of Turn 5. The incident brought out the red flags and called an early end to final practice.

Hamilton’s teammate George Russell looked less comfortable in the heavily updated car, and ended up 11th fastest.

Despite running a heavily upgraded car in Monte Carlo, AlphaTauri endured a difficult final practice. Yuki Tsunoda took 15th for AlphaTauri while his rookie teammate Nyck de Vries was down in 20th.

Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas continued to display great performance in the closing practice session, taking tenth. His teammate Zhou Guanyu put his Alfa Romeo in P16, followed by the Williams pair of Logan Sargeant and Alex Albon.

While Norris appeared to be very competitive, his Australian teammate Oscar Piastri continued to struggle on the second day of running in Monaco and was down in 19th for McLaren.