Red Bull driver Max Verstappen topped the timesheets during a busy final practice session for the Australian Grand Prix, as team mate Sergio Perez’s messy weekend continued and Nyck de Vries dramatically lost a chunk of his bodywork.
With rain impacting Friday’s action, drivers had to gather both short and long-run data across the final 60 minutes of practice at the Albert Park Circuit, leading to plenty of track activity from start to finish.
FP3: Verstappen leads Alonso and Ocon in incident-filled third practice session in Melbourne
While Verstappen led the way from Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, the session featured another off-track excursion for Haas’s Kevin Magnussen, before the left-hand sidepod on De Vries’s AlphaTauri flew off and triggered a brief red flag.
When the session resumed, Perez endured successive lock-ups at Turn 3, prior to further moments at Turn 1 and Turn 13, as he again struggled to get a clean lap in on the soft tyres – having earlier faced traffic in the form of Nico Hulkenberg.
Some more drama late in the session saw Zhou Guanyu lose control of his Alfa Romeo through the Turn 1/2 chicane, resulting in a light tap of the wall, with drizzle then returning for the final few minutes to cause some slipping and sliding.
Hit go in the video player above to watch the action from FP3 in Australia.
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