Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topped the timesheets during third and final practice ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix as drivers and teams completed their preparations for qualifying and race day.
After leading the way in Friday’s dry opening session, Verstappen lowered the weekend benchmark to a 1m 29.563s in similarly overcast and cool conditions in FP3 with a late run on soft tyres.
FP3: Verstappen leads Perez and Russell during final practice session in Japan
That put the Dutchman a couple of tenths up on team mate Sergio Perez, followed by Mercedes pair George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, the updated Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and McLaren driver Lando Norris.
It was a relatively quiet session in the build-up to the all-important grid-deciding session later on Saturday, but there were spins for Haas driver Kevin Magnussen and RB’s Daniel Ricciardo as they got up to speed.
Watch the highlights from FP3 at Suzuka in the video player above.
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