What happened in final Saudi Arabian Grand Prix F1 practice

Max Verstappen emerged on top of final Saudi Arabian Grand Prix practice, while his Formula 1 title rival Lewis Hamilton narrowly avoided a terrifying high-speed collision with Nikita Mazepin.

Key moments:

– Hamilton leads most of early part of session
– But Verstappen takes top spot on softs
– Mazepin nearly collects slow-moving Hamilton

Hamilton had two near-misses in quick succession, first with Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri (which had to take to the run-off area to avoid the slow-moving Mercedes) and then in much more frightening style with Nikita Mazepin.

The Haas and slow-moving Mercedes had to jink out of each other’s way at the very last second in a fast, blind S-bend, with Hamilton telling his team he needed much more warning that Mazepin was approaching on a flying lap.

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When Haas contacted the FIA about the incident, race director Michael Masi indicated that he would discuss it both with Mercedes and the track officials as he felt there had also been inadequate signalling from the marshals.

Masi has instructed drivers not to drive unnecessarily slowly at the very end of the lap when preparing for fast laps but there are no particular instructions around other sections of the circuit.

Hamilton had earlier spent much of the session on top, having a lock-up and spin-turn at Turn 1 along the way before reaching a 1m28.314s best on hard tyres.

Lewis Hamilton locks up at Turn 1 and runs out of road

We were briefly under a yellow flag, but no harm is done and he's back on track#SaudiArabianGP 🇸🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/oTIR2bZhCb

— Formula 1 (@F1) December 4, 2021

But he couldn’t do any better on that when he went for softs, whereas championship opponent Verstappen did make gains there.

Those didn’t necessarily come on fresh rubber, though – with many of Verstappen’s best laps nine or 10 laps into a stint on softs.

A string of late improvements meant Verstappen eventually ended up 0.214s clear of Hamilton on a 1m28.100s.

The Red Bull group showed strong pace overall, with Sergio Perez third ahead of AlphaTauri duo Yuki Tsunoda and Gasly.

The second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas was nearly a second off the pace in sixth.

Ferrari got Charles Leclerc’s car repaired after his heavy Friday crash and he pipped team-mate Carlos Sainz to seventh.

Practice 3 Results