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Verstappen leads wet Turkish GP Practice 3
Max Verstappen completed a practice clean sweep at the Turkish Grand Prix in a soaking wet FP3 in Istanbul.
The Red Bull Racing driver’s best effort was a 1m48.48s, enough to be 0.945s quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and 1.5s ahead of teammate Alex Albon, but times meant little at the end of the barely representative hour of running that featured precious few flying laps.
Drizzle had set in at Istanbul Park 40 minutes before the start of final practice and intensified as the session progressed, turning conditions treacherous.
The circuit was extremely slippery on account of resurfacing work completed less than two weeks ago. Already in the dry on Friday the oily asphalt and cool conditions combined to offer minimum grip with which to warm the tires; the slick of rain and an ambient and track temperature stuck below 55 degrees made the track borderline undriveable.
With qualifying scheduled to begin two hours from the end of the session, there are doubts the grid-setting hour will be able to start on time if conditions persist and prevent the track from draining.
Intermediate tires were sampled from the outset, but after 10 minutes conditions deteriorated and demanded the full wet compound, though even this most extreme tread did little for driveability.
With a chance the weather will persist into qualifying and potentially Sunday’s race, teams opted to curtail running instead to save tires for the competitive sessions.
Only three drivers completed 10 or more laps, with most of the rest contenting themselves with a handful of attempted flyers before returning to the garage.
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Top of mind was the risk of a crash so soon before qualifying. Leclerc and Esteban Ocon tangled at Turn 12, the Monegasque sliding down the Frenchman’s inside and tapping his rear-left corner, sending the Renault into a spin.
Ocon emerged unscathed, but Leclerc later reported his steering was misaligned.
“Undriveable like this,” Leclerc radioed. “Tires are too cold.”
Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi spun off at Turn 2 with five minutes remaining and just kissed the inside barrier. The Italian emerged with only minor damage to his front wing and plenty to say about the conditions over team radio as he slipped and slid his way back to the garage.
Lewis Hamilton similarly returned to the track late to assess its status ahead of qualifying and was unequivocal with his feedback.
“There’s just no grip out here,” he said before returning to his garage. “Shocking.”
The Briton ended the session last without setting a lap time.
Michael Lamonato
Having first joined the F1 press corps in 2012 by what he assumed was administrative error, Michael has since made himself one of the few Australian regulars in the press room. Graduating in print journalism and later radio, he worked his way from community media to Australia's ABC Grandstand as an F1 broadcaster, and his voice is now heard on the official Australian Grand Prix podcast, the F1 Strategy Report and Box of Neutrals. Though he'd prefer to be recognized for his F1 expertise, in parts of hometown Melbourne his reputation for once being sick in a kart will forever precede him.
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