George Russell put Mercedes on prime of the timesheet in an intriguing remaining apply on the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix as Oliver Bearman crashed his Haas.
Regardless of complaining of “horrible” experience and attainable engine issues, Russell set the quickest day trip of nowhere within the remaining moments of FP3 to edge Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by simply 0.013 seconds.
Lando Norris was third-quickest, 0.223s adrift of Russell and only a fraction forward of McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri.
Reigning world champion Max Verstappen, who leads title rival Norris by 62 factors heading into the weekend, was fifth, 0.348s behind Russell’s benchmark.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz ended up sixth forward of the Crimson Bull of Sergio Perez and the Williams pair of Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto, each of whom set eye-catching tempo to sit down eighth and ninth.
Lewis Hamilton rounded out the highest 10, with the seven-time world champion nearly eight tenths adrift of his Mercedes teammate.
The battle for pole place seems too near name heading into Saturday’s qualifying, with Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren all displaying indicators of being in competition.
FP3 was punctuated by two purple flags: the primary brought on when Alpine’s Esteban Ocon floor to a halt on observe with an unspecified difficulty.
British teenager Bearman, on simply his second F1 race weekend as a stand-in for banned Haas common Kevin Magnussen, introduced out a second purple flag when he clattered the obstacles at Flip 1.
