Verstappen heads Red Bull one-two as Hamilton crash ends final practice

Max Verstappen led Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez in final practice for the Monaco Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton crashed his Mercedes in the final minutes.

The world champion was just under a tenth of a second quicker than Perez with Lance Stroll third for Aston Martin. Hamilton crashed into the barriers at Mirabeau in the final minutes, striking the barrier with his W14’s front-left wheel.

With just a single hour of practice before the most crucial qualifying session of the season, the third and final practice session was teams’ final chase to tune their cars. Despite that, there was not a particular rush of cars out onto the circuit – save for the Aston Martin drivers of Stroll and Fernando Alonso heading out to scrub sets of medium tyres.

Eventually the Red Bull of Perez and the Alpine pair of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly took to the track on soft tyres, with Perez completing the first timed lap of the day – a 1’15.641. Ocon briefly came to a halt in the middle of the tunnel, complaining of a loss of power on his car. He managed to get the car going again and recover to the pits without any need to stop the session.

More cars began to trickle out onto the circuit, including the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr on soft tyres. Sainz was the quicker of the pair on their first flying laps, with Stroll and Valtteri Bottas splitting the two Ferraris. Perez improved to go under the 1’15 mark for the first time, before Lando Norris moved to the top of the times with a 1’14.905.

Perez shaved six tenths off his personal best time to retake the top spot, but that was easily beaten by Verstappen who posted a 1’13.794 on his first flying lap of the day to go instantly to the top of the times. That was until Alonso replaced him with a lap almost a tenth of a second quicker than the Red Bull driver, but still comfortably slower than the ultimate pace from Friday.

The two Red Bulls retook the top two positions with Verstappen lowering his time to a 1’13.583 – just four-thousandths of a second quicker than his team mate. Sainz moved to third with team mate Leclerc improving to fourth, despite the hometown driver complaining of having “no control” over his car.

Around half an hour into the session, teams began to bring their cars back into the garages to prepare for their qualifying simulation runs towards the end of the hour. Eventually the track became busy once more with around 15 minutes remaining. Despite heading out on fresh soft tyres, most of those at the top of the times struggled to find any time improvement.

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Further flying laps were ruined when Kevin Magnussen went off into the run off at Sainte Devote, bringing out the yellow flags. Despite recovering out of the run off, Magnussen eventually stopped his Haas on track on the approach to Portier, bringing out a Virtual Safety Car as the marshals removed his stricken car.

The green flags flew once the car was cleared, but with only five minutes remaining Hamilton locked up on the way into Mirabeau while passing Alexander Albon’s Williams, and crashed into the outside barrier. The session was red-flagged with Hamilton’s Mercedes stranded on the circuit and with only a handful of minutes remaining, the session was not resumed.

That ensured Verstappen would end practice fastest for the second consecutive session with team mate Perez less than a tenth behind. Stroll was third for Aston Martin ahead of Sainz, Norris and Gasly. Leclerc was seventh in the second Ferrari with Hamilton eighth despite crashing. Ocon and Bottas completed the top ten.

2023 Monaco Grand Prix third practice result

Position	Number	Driver	Team	Model	Time	Gap	Laps
1	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	RB19	1’12.776		19
2	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	RB19	1’12.849	0.073	24
3	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR23	1’12.942	0.166	20
4	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	SF-23	1’13.261	0.485	20
5	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL60	1’13.396	0.620	21
6	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	A523	1’13.453	0.677	24
7	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	SF-23	1’13.475	0.699	19
8	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	W14	1’13.486	0.710	17
9	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	A523	1’13.496	0.720	18
10	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C43	1’13.521	0.745	20
11	63	George Russell	Mercedes	W14	1’13.590	0.814	18
12	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	VF-23	1’13.624	0.848	13
13	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	VF-23	1’13.650	0.874	16
14	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR23	1’13.697	0.921	18
15	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	AT04	1’13.738	0.962	21
16	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C43	1’13.772	0.996	20
17	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	FW45	1’13.851	1.075	19
18	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	FW45	1’13.930	1.154	23
19	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL60	1’13.998	1.222	18
20	21	Nyck de Vries	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	AT04	1’14.187	1.411	24

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