Abu Dhabi, FP3: Hamilton tops final practice, two tenths clear of Verstappen

Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheet in final practice for Formula 1’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, beating title rival Max Verstappen by two tenths, with Valtteri Bottas third ahead of Sergio Pérez.

Verstappen was an early runner in the mid-afternoon final practice session taking to the track on medium tyres and jumping to the top of the timesheet as he worked his wat down to a lap of 1:24.828.

Hamilton appeared 10 minutes into the session on soft compound tyres and he went more than five tenths of a second clear of the Dutchman with a lap of 1:24.241 as Bottas rose to third place.

Hamilton then increased the gap to Verstappen to seven tenths of a second with a lap of 1:24.055, as Perez bounced Bottas out of the top three to sit just 0.004s behind teammate Verstappen.

Before the halfway mark Bottas claimed top spot only for Hamilton to make another leap forward with a lap of 1:23.274. Pérez meanwhile jumped ahead of his teammate to take over third place, as Verstappen sat in the garage looking in his mirrors as his crew moved him to a lower downforce rear wing in search of more straightline speed.

The Dutchman wasn;t immediately happy with the result on soft tyres though and as the field moved to softs AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda took third with his qualifying simulation and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz jumped to fourth.

On his second attempt Verstappen found more grip and pace and he posted a time of 1:23.488 to get to just over two tenths of Hamilton. At the flag, Bottas and Pérez were third and fourth, with Norris best of the rest in fifth. Tsunoda held on for sixth, just ahead of teammate Pierre Gasly. Sainz, McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo and the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc locked out the top 10.