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Pierre Gasly has completed the third free practice session at Intercity Istanbul Park with the fastest time. He was closely followed by Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez on P2 and P3 respectively. Carlos Sainz on Charles Leclerc complete the top five.
The third free practice started at 11:00 AM Dutch time from the rainy Istanbul Park. The outside temperature at that time was 17 degrees Celsius and the track temperature was 22 degrees Celsius. The track was quite wet due to the rain, so the drivers initially waited in their garages. After more than seven minutes, Pierre Gasly was the first man on the track, closely followed by teammate Yuki Tsunoda‘s. After the other teams had looked the cat out of the tree, they also dived McLaren, Haas, Ferrari on Sebastian Vettel up the job. They all rode on the blue full wets in their first run. After more than fifteen minutes, Carlos Sainz had the fastest time, with Lando Norris on P2 and Charles Leclerc on P3.
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With more than forty minutes left on the clock, the conditions started to improve and Norris came in for a set of green intermediates. If one sheep is over the dam, more will follow. Soon more drivers came out on the intermediate tire, including the drivers who had not yet been on the track. McLaren informed Ricciardo via the on-board radio that while his teammate was very fast on the intermediates, he found it very difficult to drive on that tire in some places. Caution was therefore advised.
It soon became clear that the intermediates did indeed create tricky conditions. It went very wrong with the team of Williams. George Russell had entered the track on the green belt, spun heavily and ended up off track. The young driver had ended up deep in the gravel pit, which meant that the red flag had to be involved. As time ticked by, the stewards quickly appeared on the track to clear the Briton’s car before the session resumed.
Red Bull fast in rainy conditions
Valtteri Bottas managed to seize the fastest time for a short time, but soon had to relinquish it to teammate Lewis Hamilton. Both MercedesAt that time, however, they were no match for Max Verstappen. The Dutchman clocked the fastest first and second sector and thus also got the fastest time. However, on his second timed lap, things went awry and he spun. However, the Dutchman was able to laugh about it and shouted over the on-board radio: “Beautiful 360!”
With more than fifteen minutes to go, Sergio Pérez managed to improve Verstappen’s time. The Mexican clocked a time of 1:30.684, which made him more than three tenths faster than his teammate. After that, however, both Red Bull drivers saw their time destroyed by Gasly, who drove a hell of a lap. After that Fernando Alonso a good moment, during which he just managed to keep his car out of the wall.
Final phase VT3
With five minutes remaining in the third free practice session, there were only four drivers on track: Leclerc, Kimi Raikkonen, Antonio Giovinazzi on Esteban Ocon. In the last three minutes, however, it became much busier on the track. In the end, Gasly finished the training as the fastest man, followed by Verstappen and Pérez in P2 and P3. So a good morning for Honda and Red Bull.
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