Verstappen fastest from Bottas in final practice in Austria

Max Verstappen regained the upper hand over his Mercedes rivals in Saturday's final practice session ahead of this afternoon's qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix.

The Red Bull charger clocked in with a comfortable 0.538s margin over Valtteri Bottas while Lewis Hamilton was third, 0.686s behind.

AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly was fourth in the running order in the session while an impressive flyer from Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovnazzi allowed the Italian to round off the top five.

• Austrian Grand Prix Free Practice 3 - Results

The news of Lewis Hamilton extending his stay at Mercedes until the end of 2023 grabbed the headlines on Saturday morning at the Red Bull Ring, but the Brackley squad's focus was on the final practice session ahead of this afternoon's qualifying and its ability to maintain its early edge over Red Bull.

FP3 kicked off in dry and warm conditions, with air and track temperatures respectively at 22.9°C and 46.8°C, while the risk of rain for the remainder of the day appeared to subside.

McLaren's Lando Norris put in an early benchmark, the Briton running like many of his colleagues on Pirelli's development tyre that is scheduled to be introduced at Silverstone later this month.

With just over ten minutes gone, AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda popped to the top of the timesheet with a 1m06.045s, but Norris, shod on the soft rubber, then recouped the lead, edging the Japanese driver and Alfa's Kimi Raikkonen.

Meanwhile, Mercedes' drivers had joined the action, but 25 minutes into the running, Verstappen had yet to roll down the pitlane.

As everyone started to dial in more speed, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc leapfrogged to the front with a 1m05.627s, but a soft-shod Verstappen who had finally took to the track blitzed the field in short order with a 1m04.941s that put Leclerc 0.686s behind.

There was a loud gasp in the AlphaTauri camp when an over-exuberant Tsunoda suffered a massive moment at Turn 9 when his car snapped and slid sideways but remained miraculously clear of the barriers.

As Hamilton ramped up his efforts, the Mercedes driver, also on the soft compound, slotted himself into second but 0.491s down on Verstappen and 0.052s.

Behind the championship rivals, Sainz jumped ahead of Leclerc to position himself third. But a flurry of improvements in the final 15 minutes reshuffled the running order, with Bottas overhauling Hamilton for second while Pierre Gasly and an impressive Antonio Giovinazzi moved up to P4 and P5.

But a flurry of improvements in the final 15 minutes reshuffled the final running order, with Bottas overhauling Hamilton for second while Pierre Gasly and an impressive Antonio Giovinazzi moved up to P4 and P5.

Ferrari's Sainz ended the session P6 ahead of Sergio Perez who continued to significantly underperform Verstappen, Alpine's Fernando Alonso, Leclerc and Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel.

In the second half of the field, both McLaren drivers were the principal outliers with Norris and Ricciardo clocking in a distant P15 and P16 after a scruffy morning, the pair preceding Raikkonen, Mick Schumacher, Nicholas Latifi and Nikita Mazepin.

With Verstappen back on top, the Dutchman assumed once again his status as favourite for pole position. Can Mercedes fight back? Check back in three hours to find out!

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