Australian GP FP3: Norris tops time-sheets ahead of Leclerc.

Norris Australian GP FP3 – McLaren’s Lando Norris was quickest in FP3 at the Australian GP ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by 0.132 seconds and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez who completed the top three as disaster struck Aston Martin.

Lando Norris, #4, McLaren Formula 1 Team-Mercedes, MCL36, Free Practice 3, Albert Park Street Circuit, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Image credit to McLaren. Norris Australian GP FP3, 2022 Australian GP FP3.

The red flag at the end after Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll’s shunt meant that Norris took P1 for McLaren after most of the drivers could not get in a low-fuel run at the closing stages.

The Briton posted the best effort of a 1:19.117 on the C5 red-marked softer compounds to finish 0.132 seconds faster than Leclerc.

Leclerc spent most of the final hour session before qualifying competing for top spot with Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz, Red Bull’s Perez and Alpine’s Fernando Alonso, who had a solid FP3 running.

Leclerc, Perez and Alonso were covered by 0.026 seconds from second to fourth places respectively, whilst Sainz rounded out the top five.

The other McLaren MCL36 entry of Daniel Ricciardo placed sixth in the order and ahead of reigning world champion Max Verstappen who was seventh after enduring a difficult session.

The Dutchman suffered a spin at the penultimate corner before almost losing the rear of his RB18 racer at turn one while on a flyer and said “I don’t get why I’m spinning, it’s really hard to feel the balance at the moment.”

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton followed in eighth for the Silver Arrows after narrowly avoiding hitting the wall after running wide at turn 11 in the early proceedings with former team-mate Valtteri Bottas taking ninth for Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda completed the top ten.

The second Mercedes F1 W13 of George Russell was 11th and in-front of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly who took 12th.

The sister Alpine A522 racer of Esteban Ocon finished FP3 in 13th on the time-sheets and ahead of Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher who placed 14th in the classification and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu who was 15th.

Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon and Nicholas Latifi ended FP3 in 16th and 18th places respectively with Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen splitting the pairing in 17th.

Both Aston Martin AMR22’s of Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel brought up the rear as both drivers suffered crashes and brought out two separate red flags in the session.

Vettel suffered a snap of understeer and lost the rear on the exit of the fast turn nine and ten crashing into the wall 20 minutes into the session – immediately apologising to his team and Stroll crashed out at turn 11 bringing the final practice to an early end.

Before the final practice session, the FIA reverted the DRS zones back to three on safety grounds. The new one between turns eight and nine (the long left-hand sweeper) has now been removed. The FIA’s statement read: “For safety reasons, DRS Zones will be reduced to 3 for the remainder of the event. DRS detection 1 will be moved to before Turn 9, DRS activation 1 will be after Turn 10, DRS detection 2 will remain unchanged, with the following activation zones will be renumbered accordingly,” Credit to the FIA for the quote.

You can see the full Formula 1 Heineken Australian Grand Prix 2022 Free Practice 3 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1108/australia/practice-3.html

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