Both the teams and the drivers were eager to start Saturday’s day at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix, especially due to the fact that FP1 and FP2 on Friday, with rain as the protagonist, prevented them from completing their programs and It left them with a lot of work to do.
The weather was kinder in FP3 and that caused all the cars to run for practically the entire 60-minute session, with the exception of the initial red flag caused by Guanyu Zhou.
At the end of Free Practice 3, Lewis Hamilton set the best time with a 1:12,549 during the qualifying simulation, a time that was considerably faster than that of the second classified, Max Verstappen, 0.374 seconds behind and with touch to wall of champions included.
The other Mercedes, that of George Russell, completed the top 3, 0.408s behind the seven-time world champion, but his record allowed him to surpass Lance Stroll, Oscar Piastri, Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris.
Fernando Alonso, Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc completed the top ten positions in Free Practice 3 in which many teams played to hide their cards so as not to reveal where they really are until qualifying.
The Monegasque complained about the performance of his SF-24while Carlos Sainz’s 12th position in Free Practice 3 confirmed the bad feelings for Ferrari at the moment.
Results of FP3, Free Practice 3, of the 2024 Canadian GP of F1
Summary of FP3 (Free Practice 3) of the 2024 Canadian GP of F1
After a rainy Friday, Saturday’s action in Montreal started with the sun as the protagonist, although there were also some threatening clouds. Due to the large amount of data they had to recover after “losing” FP1 and FP2, all the cars took to the track immediately with the sole objective of running as much as possible.
Once the first laps were completed, Sergio Pérez was the fastest with a 1:18.096, but Pierre Gasly soon lowered the bar to 1:16.412, while Max Verstappen had some problem with his car and acknowledged on the radio that he was not I was completely comfortable with the direction of it.
However, the red flag did not take long to arrive, specifically about six minutes, when, like on Friday, Guanyu Zhou lost control of his car and hit the protections. Fortunately, the marshals were able to remove his car quickly and FP3 resumed.
With the cars back on the asphalt, practically everyone opted for the medium tire, with the exception of the two Aston Martins, which had the hard tire. On his fifth lap of the rubber, Verstappen was able to climb to first position with a 1:15.495, just as Magnussen placed second at 0.704s. Curiously, Alonso, who was wearing the harder rubber, overtook the Danish Has and was 0.2s behind the Dutchman, who immediately after set an even better time; 1:14,983.
After the first 20 minutes of the session, Alonso confirmed Friday’s good feelings with a 1:14.445 that took him to first place on his sixth lap with the hard tires. Meanwhile, the McLarens were approaching the leading positions, 3rd and 4th respectively, although the Ferraris continued with their particular program at the bottom of the time table.
During the first half hour of Free Practice 3, the activity on the track was frenetic, as the engineers needed to collect a large amount of data in record time to achieve the best possible setup for the rest of the weekend. However, once the midway point of FP3 had passed, the cars returned to their garages to make some changes before facing the qualifying simulations so famous for this type of sessions.
The first time with the soft tires was set by Carlos Sainz, a 1:14.514 that could not even beat Alonso’s time with hard tires. On the other hand, George Russell did it with a 1:14.279, while Logan Sargeant placed second at 0.076s. Charles Leclerc, with a 1:13.581, was the next to place first, but Lewis Hamilton lowered his time with a 1:13.464.
Lando Norris with his McLaren also improved his times to be second, 0.011s behind Hamilton, but the big favorites, the Red Bulls, continued to ride with the mediums, as did the Aston Martins.
In a second “attack” with the soft tire in the last 15 minutes of FP3, Russell lowered the bar to 1:13.274, 0.190s faster than his teammate Hamilton. In those final fast laps, Alexander Albon touched the famous wall of champions and was very very close to suffering an accident.
After that brief yellow flag, Hamilton improved to 1:12.549, just when Verstappen, in his first lap on soft tires, placed third, 0.740s behind the Briton, still very far away, before falling to fourth place when Daniel Ricciardo also overtook him. .
Alonso, on his first lap of the session on softs, placed eighth, 1 second off the best time, behind the two McLaren drivers. Leclerc was fifth, 0.8s behind Hamilton, while Pérez was 9th, with Sainz far behind in a distant 14th position.
On his second fastest lap, Verstappen improved to place second, but still three tenths off the seven-time Mercedes champion’s best time, with Russell moving up to third place. Stroll was the positive surprise by being fourth with his Aston Martin, in contrast to the Ferraris (10th and 12th).
On his final flying lap, Verstappen touched the champions’ wall, but apparently did not suffer any serious damage to his Red Bull RB20.
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