2021 F1 Round 3, Portuguese Grand Prix FP3: Verstappen fastest with 1:18.489, Mercedes pair close behind

The third practice session for the Portuguese Grand Prix, round three of the 2021 F1 season, took place at the Algarve International Circuit on Saturday evening, May 1 (China Standard Time, UTC+8). Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topped the timesheets in the final practice session before qualifying with a 1:18.489.

The Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas took second and third respectively, but were a little adrift of Verstappen, with gaps of 0.236s and 0.331s. Fourth was Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez, just 0.02s behind Bottas.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner offered his prediction for the fight with Mercedes for pole: “This was a circuit where Mercedes had the edge last year. If all goes well, we can carry this form into qualifying and put the pressure on. It will be a very closely fought battle.”

At AlphaTauri, Pierre Gasly was ninth and Yuki Tsunoda 11th, suggesting the team had found some improvements since FP2. Tsunoda, who had vowed to be quicker on the second day, cut his gap to Gasly from 0.646s in FP1 and 0.495s in FP2 to 0.111s.

On the second day of the Grand Prix weekend at the Algarve circuit, this session—a pointer to qualifying form—began in dry conditions, with an air temperature of 17°C and a track temperature of 30°C.

Following 35 track-limits infringements in FP1 and 30 in FP2, the International Automobile Federation (FIA) added Turns 5 and 14 to the list of corners being monitored from this session onwards.

In addition, strong winds blew an advertising board onto the track, prompting a virtual safety car (VSC) period 25 minutes into the session.

Alpine had lacked competitiveness in the previous two races, but the improvement shown this weekend following upgrades appeared genuine: Esteban Ocon took fifth ahead of the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in sixth and seventh respectively, while Fernando Alonso was further back in 14th.

McLaren claimed eighth place. There was an incident in which a driver slid at Turn 14, bringing out yellow flags, but the in-form Lando Norris still finished around 0.1s ahead of Gasly, while Daniel Ricciardo was 12th.

The final place in the top 10 went to Alfa Romeo: Kimi Räikkönen was 10th, 0.07s ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, while Antonio Giovinazzi finished 13th, around 0.17s behind his team-mate.

After being well off his team-mate’s pace on the opening day, Nikita Mazepin had closed the gap somewhat but was still 0.657s behind 15th-placed Mick Schumacher. He was bottom of the order in 20th as his struggles continued.

The track surface, relaid before the race, had a wide-ranging impact on tyre temperatures and grip during last October’s Grand Prix. Although grip had improved slightly in the six months since, the opening day’s practice still showed that getting the tyres into their operating window remained difficult.

The problem was particularly pronounced on the soft tyres, and some drivers might switch to medium tyres in Q2 of qualifying.

Most drivers will also run two warm-up laps to get the soft tyres properly into their operating window, so traffic could be a key factor in qualifying.

Qualifying took place at the same circuit at 10 p.m. on May 1, China Standard Time (UTC+8).