FP3 Monaco: Red Bull’s Perez goes fastest after back and forth with Ferrari’s Leclerc

The final hour of Practice got underway this morning as teams make the most of every moment on track ahead of an all-important Qualifying session later this afternoon.

Ferrari dominated on Friday at the Circuit de Monaco, but Red Bull continues to be their closest challenger this weekend as Mercedes struggled with violent porpoising.

The prancing horses arrived on track with a bang at 12:00 with Charles Leclerc leading with a lap in 1:14.008 – a tenth ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz.

Red Bull’s Verstappen posted an early flying lap to go third, and was +0.808s behind the current Monegasque leader, with Perez just a couple hundredths of a second behind his teammate.

Moments later, the Dutchman showed even better pace – enough to close the gap to Leclerc. He was just 0.038s behind with 40 minutes to go.

Mercedes arrived on track but will need to make strides of improvement if they plan to challenge the front runners – Lewis Hamilton was sitting in eighth +1.161s off the pace.

Leclerc continued to stretch his lead, finding more and more pace in the FI-75, even on 12-lap old tyres – he clocked in just over 1:12s, increasing the gap to Red Bull by 0.4s.

Meanwhile, Lando Norris continued to impress, as he moved up the order to third with a fantastic flying lap – he was just +0.341s off Leclerc’s pace before being replaced by Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri.

Verstappen couldn’t improve on his times before the chequered flag, however, his teammate Sergio Perez was swapping the top spot with the leading Ferrari before concluding the session out front.

Drivers will be putting the pedal to the metal this afternoon for Qualifying as it kicks off at 15:00.

Until then, here are the full results from FP3 at the Circuit de Monaco:

CATCH UP: FP1 Monaco: Mercedes struggle, traffic poses issues and Ferrari – Red Bull battle resumes

CATCH UP: FP2 Monaco: Lelcerc in a league of his own as Red Bull continue to chase and Mercedes encounter more struggles