Four different cars in the top four at the end of the third free practice session of the Australian Grand Prix and among these there is no Mercedes: McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Alpine recites the ranking thanks to the performances of Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso. Compared to Friday, the drivers were unable to operate the DRS between Turns 8 and 9 for safety reasons, a little boost to the A522’s performance, but despite this decision the teams have all gone towards increasing the aerodynamic load to ‘solve’ the problems in the third sector where yesterday the Ferrari F1-75 excelled, which immediately started strong thanks to an excellent preparation work carried out in Maranello during the simulation.
These are the notes of Federico Albano analyzing the telemetry of the third free practice session, 60 minutes to say the least frantic and shortened by the knockouts of the Aston Martins of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll. ‘It was a complicated session and the track became very difficult for the drivers to drive – his analysis – the impression is that all the teams have gone towards increasing downforce. McLaren seems to have loaded a lot and found the best time. Ferrari still seemed to me to be out of engine in line with what we saw in the previous weekends in which the Maranello Scuderia was very conservative until the start of Qualifying. The less DRS zone changed the approach to the long straight a lot, a lot of clipping for everyone and then looking for top speed in the next section, before Curva-11. Alpine very well in slow corners’.
Perez’s position and the fact that Max Verstappen was unable to put together a good lap due to the tantrums of the Red Bull RB18 defined as a ‘prima donna’ by Helmut Marko – so much is still complicated to fine-tune the set-up – leaves suggest that despite the insertions of Norris and Alonso the challenge for pole will still be a matter between Ferrari and Red Bullwith the Scuderia di Maranello favored and ready to ‘enjoy’ the direct confrontation between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
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