George Russell had the privilege in Abu Dhabi of topping F1’s final practice of the year, the Mercedes driver leading the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
The clean, incident-free session was a puzzling affair for several of the front-runners, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc unable to emulate his pace from Friday, while his teammate Carlos Sainz concluded FP3 dead last.
Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were also at a fair distance from the front of the field, the red Bull duo clocking in respectively P6 and P11.
Teams and drivers were eager to resume their work in FP3 after a disrupted Friday left everyone with a shortage of data for the crucial final qualifying session of the year.
However, like in FP1, conditions were far from representative of the cooler twilight environment that they will encounter this evening and on race day, meaning set-ups will likely to be far from optimized.
Hamilton and both Aston Martin drivers were first to head out, and the former was on the soft tyre at the outset.
The seven-time world champion set the first benchmark, but it was quickly bettered by Sainz and then Perez who lowered the reference time to 1m25.417. But that only stood for a few minutes, until Russell took over.
Meanwhile, after a leisurely wait, Verstappen finally joined the action. But it was a quiet start for the Dutchman whose first flyer slotted him into fifth, behind Russell, Perez, Stroll and Alonso.
But Verstappen’s second hot lap on the softs pushed him up to P2 while Oscar Piastri stepped up to third.
Ferrari appeared in no hurry to up the pace, as Leclerc and Sainz lingered well down the order, the pair also shying away from the soft compound rubber as they focused on balance rather than speed.
Both Albon and Sargeant popped out of the woodwork to go P2 and P4 on the softs, while Ocon split the Williams pair in third place.
As the session entered its final 15 minutes, it was Norris and Piastri’s turn to seize second and third, with the former closing in within 0.095s of Russell’s still unbeaten time.
Bottoming complaints by Verstappen triggered a thorough check in the Red Bull camp and a lengthy stay in the pit box.
Meanwhile, Ferrari finally opted to bolt on the softs but while Leclerc was able to position himself among the top 5, a puzzled Sainz oddly remained among the laggards.
Russell thus closed out on top the final practice session of the season, the Briton followed by a feisty pair of McLarens with Norris and Piastri, with Albon, Leclerc and Verstappen rounding off the top five.
Thereafter followed Ocon, the fastest Alpine driver, with Sargeant just behind thanks to a solid performance, and Tsunoda and Zhou bookending the top ten.
Big guns Perez, Hamilton and both Aston Martins were all consigned to the second half of the field, leaving many with more questions than answers ahead of this evening’s final grid defining session of the year.
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