Charles Leclerc finished second for Ferrari, with Sergio Perez third in the other RB20 and Carlos Sainz’s illness-replacement, Oliver Bearman, taking 10th in the second of the Scuderia’s machines.
Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas ventured out on track first, with plenty of attention already on Bearman – a crowd of cameras and photographers clustered in front of what is now his garage.
Bottas posted the initial benchmark at 1m31.307s, with Bearman soon out behind him and also running the medium tyres.
He initially lapped nearly two seconds off Bottas’s pace, with Hamilton then beating the pair with a 1m30.793s on the soft tyres approaching the 10-minute mark.
Just past this, with Bearman’s second flier bringing him closer to the pace, Bottas re-took first place with a 1m30.770s, before Bearman pipped that with a 1m30.277s.
Hamilton, however, had also carried on for a second flier on his softs and he took this back to the top spot with a 1m30.253s as the opening quarter concluded, with most of pack still in the pits.
This did not include George Russell in the other Mercedes, as he was already out – also on the softs – but running a lower-downforce rear wing package compared to Hamilton.
Oliver Bearman, Scuderia Ferrari, has a seat fit
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Russell initially ran adrift of his team-mate and Bearman before he took the top spot with his second flier, which came in at 1m29.862s just before the 20-minute mark, after which Leclerc slotted the other Ferrari into second just 0.146s adrift on the medium tyres.
After this, the Red Bulls finally arrived in the fray, with Perez moving straight to the top of the times with a 1m29.562s on the soft tyres, with Verstappen’s first flier putting him second by 0.211s also on the red-walled rubber.
Approaching the end of FP3’s first half, Leclerc’s continued run on mediums took him to top spot as his second flying effort came in at 1m29.206s, then as the clock ticked over the 30-minute mark, Verstappen’s second push lap on the softs meant he forged ahead with a 1m28.893s and a new 0.313s gap at the head of the times.
After two more cooldown laps on his first set of softs, Verstappen went for a third time with 25 minutes remaining and bettered his own benchmark with a 1m28.412s and an increased gap to Leclerc at the head of the rest at this stage of 0.794s.
Shortly after this – when Verstappen had joined many other cars in the pits but…
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