Sakhir, FP3: Max Verstappen beats Charles Leclerc, Sergio Pérez

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen wen quickest in the final practice session ahead of qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix beating Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to by less than a tenth of a second with Sergio Pérez third in the second Red Bull RB18.

The session, held in substantially different conditions to those likely to be in play during qualifying got off to a slow start but eventually drivers began to set more representative times, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz leading the way ahead of Pérez and with Leclerc third.

However, after 25 minutes Verstappen made his appearance and he quickly vaulted to the top of the timesheet with a soft-tyre lap of 1:33.035, 0.762s quicker than Leclerc.

Leclerc then had an off-track moment at Turn 11. The Ferrari driver lost control on entry and went through the gravel trap. He was able to drive back to the pits, however, to prepare for his final runs on the C3 tyre.

Just after the half way point, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton made a jump up the order thanks to a lap of 1:33.121 on softs but he was soon shuffled down the order by Sainz who went a tenth quicker and then by George Russell who took third in the second Mercedes with a lap of 1:32.935.

Verstappen then emerged but his backed out of his first run after locking up in Turn 1. His second attempt was clean, however, and he took top spot with a lap 1:32.544s.

Pérez then put in a late flyer to claim third place ahead of Russell. Sainz was fifth, with Hamilton sixth 0.577s off Verstappen’s pace.

Kevin Magnussen finished seventh in a good session for Haas with the Dane ending up just under nine tenths of a second off the pace. Eighth place went to Valtteri Bottas with new team-mate Zhou Guanyi ninth and Lance Stroll rounded out the top 10 for Aston Martin.

Yuki Tsunoda failed to take part in the session due to hydraulic problems on his AlphaTauri.