Formula 1, GP of Japan: Verstappen in the dry Suzuka three tenths faster than Ferrari

In contrast to yesterday’s wet first two practice sessions of the 18th Formula 1 race of the year, today’s dry third practice session saw Red Bull RB18 and Max Verstappen bring out the speed they lacked yesterday – ahead of qualifying tests for the Japanese GP soon (8/ 10, 9:00).

In a process that lasted hours with very heavy traffic, during which all teams had to collect the data from the three Pirelli tires which they were unable to collect yesterday, the drivers’ fast laps in the qualifying simulation were set on the softest of the three tires it was made of carried out with many obstacles.

After several sets of driver laps on medium and hard surface, around half an hour into testing as usual, the majority of drivers recorded a set of fastest laps on soft surface – that’s 1.2” on the fastest lap at, according to Pirelli Suzuka Conditions.

Saint initially took the lead by a slim margin over Leclerc as Fernando Alonso moved up to 4th on the middle tire. Verstappen was also running the Medium tire at this point, closing Saind down to 0.35″, which is an impressively short distance considering the performance difference between the two tire types.

After new sets of laps on the two harder tires, the drivers made another attempt in the last few minutes on the soft rubber of the qualifying tests – always in very heavy traffic. Leclerc was soon within 15mm of Saint’s freshman year, but shortly thereafter the two Scuderia drivers fell back to 2nd and 3rd with a final 1’30.671 from Verstappen.

Alonso held his ground impressively in 4th place on the soft too, with a time two tenths quicker than Sergio Perez in the other RB18 and also the two Mercedes’s of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton – who again appeared to be struggling with the set-up the two Mercedes W13.