After a Verstappen-led Friday in Austria, Lewis Hamilton managed to claw his way ahead of the Red Bull in FP3 this morning at the Red Bull Ring.
Hamilton finished two-tenths of a second ahead of the current championship leader with the fastest lap of 1:04.369s.
However, Verstappen’s attempt at resuming the top spot was tarnished when he met traffic in the first sector of his flying lap and then voiced his frustrations at Hamilton over the team radio after he held him up in the final sector.
Meanwhile, Valtteri Bottas was third fastest when time ran out this morning, four-tenths off the pace.
After an incident of ‘dangerous’ pitlane driving on Friday, the Finn will be subject to a three-place grid penalty for tomorrow’s race after an investigation by the stewards.
Further afield this morning was the second Red Bull in the hands of Sergio Perez who was 0.657s off the leading pace of his teammate.
It’s looking likely to be a good weekend for the AlphaTauri team, as Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly finished fifth and sixth fastest – marking a great return for Pierre Gasly who missed out on FP2 yesterday.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were in P7 and P13 and will definitely be looking to improve on their pace this afternoon in Qualifying.
More surprisingly, the McLaren duo fell down the order and were in 17th and 19th this morning.
It looks as if Ricciardo may not be as comfortable today in his MCL35M, while Lando Norris had his best lap time deleted for track limits at Turn 10.
Qualifying kicks off this afternoon at 2:00 pm.
