George Russell snatched the top spot in a frantic final practice session for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, beating championship leader Lando Norris by just 0.004s as Max Verstappen settled for third.
FP3 delivered everything from traffic chaos to a red flag and late-session time attacks – the perfect warm-up for Sunday’s title showdown.
Norris, Verstappen and Oscar Piastri all enter the finale with a mathematical shot at the crown, though the McLaren driver holds a 12-point lead over Verstappen and 16 over his team-mate.
With the session starting in the heat of the afternoon – far removed from the conditions of Sunday night’s race – teams were in no rush. For the first 15 minutes, only the Alpines logged real laps while others waited for the track to evolve.
Once running began in earnest, Norris immediately stamped his authority with a 1m24.728s on soft tyres. Even as the field switched to the same compound, few could match him early on, and he duly trimmed his own benchmark by another two tenths as the session approached halfway.
But as more cars joined the fray and rubber went down, track evolution kicked into overdrive. Traffic soon became a minefield: Norris dodged a slow-moving Yuki Tsunoda into Turn 12, while Liam Lawson found himself boxed in behind Esteban Ocon. Still, some managed clean laps, and the leaderboard shuffled accordingly.
Verstappen briefly rose to the top with a 1m24.245s, heading an unlikely top three of Lance Stroll and Oliver Bearman as the McLarens momentarily slipped down the order.
Red Flag Chaos and Final Flurry
Just as the session reached full intensity, Lewis Hamilton brought everything to a halt.
The Ferrari driver spun into the Turn 9 barrier with 29 minutes remaining and reported that “something buckled at the front and snapped the rear” as he hit the apex.
The first red flag of the weekend followed, wiping out a chunk of track time before FP3 resumed with 18 minutes left — enough for one final flurry.
Verstappen lit the fuse with a 1m24.116s once running resumed, but Piastri immediately reset the bar with a lap half a second quicker. Norris then outdid his team-mate by another quarter of a second, thanks largely to a scorching final sector.
Drama unfolded in the pitlane too, as Mercedes released Andrea Kimi Antonelli directly into Tsunoda, ending the RB driver’s session on the spot.
As teams scrambled to squeeze in last-minute qualifying simulations, the times continued to tumble. Russell produced the lap of the session – a 1m23.334s – in the dying moments, and it proved untouchable.
He ended FP3 on top, ahead of Norris by a whisper and 0.180s clear of Verstappen. Fernando Alonso delivered a surprise fourth, Piastri wound up fifth, and Haas enjoyed an eye-catching showing with Ocon sixth and Bearman seventh.
Ferrari endured a muted session, with Charles Leclerc only eighth, while Antonelli and Alex Albon rounded out the top ten.
With just qualifying left before the title decider, one thing is clear: the margin between glory and heartbreak is razor-thin — and shrinking by the session.
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