2024 Japanese Grand Prix – Free Practice 3 results

Max Verstappen led a Red Bull 1-2 in final practice for the Japanese Grand Prix where he was two-tenths quicker than Sergio Perez.

Mercedes, having arguably their best weekend of the season, were Red Bull’s closest challenger with George Russell 0.355s down on the P1 time and a tenth up on his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Max Verstappen tops Red Bull 1-2 ahead of Mercedes

Following on from Friday’s red flag for Logan Sargeant’s crash and the later rain, the drivers were quickly into their programmes at the start of FP3.

While some opted for the medium tyres, others went immediately onto the softs with Lewis Hamilton on the red-marked tyres setting the early pace with a 1:30.065 ahead of Max Verstappen, who was running the mediums.

From qualifying simulations to long runs, the drivers ran a mix of programmes throughout the final practice hour as they made up for the time they’d lost on Friday.

But while Hamilton sat P1 for much of final practice, it was all-change after the late-session qualifying simulations.

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Max Verstappen came through to claim the P1 time with a 1:29.563 to sit 0.269 seconds ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.

George Russell, having languished at the back of the timesheets as he focused on long runs on the mediums tyres, shot up to third place where he was 0.355 down on the P1 time.

Hamilton’s early benchmark was good enough for fourth place ahead of Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz.

Oscar Piastri, Yuki Tsunoda and an unhappy Charles Leclerc completed the top ten.

Results

1 Max VERSTAPPEN 1:29.563 23 laps
2 Sergio PEREZ +0.269 25 laps
3 George RUSSELL +0.355 24 laps
4 Lewis HAMILTON +0.474 21 laps
5 Fernando ALONSO +0.519 24 laps
6 Lando NORRIS +0.574 14 laps
7 Carlos SAINZ +0.608 27 laps
8 Oscar PIASTRI +0.663 19 laps
9 Yuki TSUNODA +0.778 21 laps
10 Charles LECLERC +0.820 25 laps
11 Alexander ALBON +0.970 23 laps
12 Valtteri BOTTAS +0.983 26 laps
13 Daniel RICCIARDO +1.119 24 laps
14 Esteban OCON +1.459 18 laps
15 Guanyu ZHOU +1.504 16 laps
16 Nico HULKENBERG +1.576 21 laps
17 Pierre GASLY +1.578 19 laps
18 Lance STROLL +1.779 23 laps
19 Logan SARGEANT +1.889 20 laps
20 Kevin MAGNUSSEN +1.899 22 laps

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