Verstappen edges Alonso in final practice in Melbourne

Max Verstappen topped the third and final practice on Saturday morning in Melbourne, the Red Bull driver edging Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso by 0.162s in another tricky session that ended with a bout of rain.

Behind the leading duo, Alpine's Esteban Ocon validated Alpine's form, the pink panther preceding Mercedes' George Russell and teammate Pierre Gasly.

Sergio Perez closed out the top six after enduring a horror session marked by more off-track visits than he would care to remember, the Mexican's Red Bull obviously undermined by a fundamental balance issue.

• Australian GP Free Practice 3 - Results

Chilly conditions were in order on Saturday morning, with temperatures struggling to get higher than the mid-teens while the sky above Melbourne suggested a threat of rain.

The importance of the session was boosted by yesterday's red flag, rain and traffic laden opening day of running that disrupted many teams' programmes.

And yet, there was no rush for teams to play catch-up when the light went green at the end of the pitlane.

Aston Martin's Lance Stroll was the first to break the silence, followed by his teammate Fernando Alonso. Gradually, others joined the action, but installation laps were the norm.

Long runs appeared to be in order, which was a logical session strategy given the limited data collected on Friday.

Sainz topped the early times, until Verstappen went fastest on the mediums. But Leclerc was keen on upholding Ferrari's Italian pride. Further rotations up front ensued, with Sainz settling the running order from Alonso and Alpine's Pierre Gasly as the session reached its half-way point.

Proceedings were briefly interrupted by a red flag to allow for the recovery of a piece of debris- apparently from the back end of Nyck de Vries' AlphaTauri.

The session resumed with Perez fighting handling issues onboard his RB19 and suffering an off-track excursion after locking up at Turn 3, and with Hamilton and Russell popping up to P2 and P3 behind Sainz as Mercedes upped the pace.

With less than 15 minutes to go, Alfa's Zhou Guanyu was unwillingly offered some TV exposure when he lost it and brushed the wall at Turn 2 before getting going again.

There was bad news however down at McLaren where Lando Norris was out of the session with a clutch issue, meaning another not so clean weekend for team papaya.

Meanwhile, as the soft rubber rose to prominence, a pair of quick Alpines jumped to the top, but Ocon and Gasly were overhauled in short order by Verstappen.

Hot laps were fast and furious as the session entered its closing stages, with Alonso and Russell also leapfrogging Alpine's pink panthers.

But Perez was growing increasingly frustrated with his car's balance, the Mexican enduring a horrible session that will require a proper investigation by Red Bull as something was definitely off on Checo's RB19.

A rain cloud unleashed its content over Albert Park with a few minutes to go and reined in everyone's pace and wound down the session which concluded with the usual series of practice starts.

Verstappen thus concluded FP3 at the top of the field, followed by Alonso, Ocon, Russell and Gasly who rounded off the top five. Thereafter, Perez edged Sainz, Hamilton, Stroll and Zhou.

McLaren's troubled session concluded with Oscar Piastri being put under investigation by the stewards for failing to follow the race director's instructions for practice starts.

With weather conditions uncertain and traffic likely to be an ever-present problem in Q1, fans are anticipating a frantic qualifying session this afternoon.

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