Emilia Romagna GP FP3: McLaren lead, Verstappen joins the party
F1 NewsSaturday, 17 May 2025 at 13:35
McLaren's dominance continued at the 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as Lando Norris topped the final practice session with Oscar Piastri second while Max Verstappen improved.
McLaren remained the team to beat ahead of qualifying for the Emilia Romagna GP later today, but Verstappen and Red Bull seemed to find some pace overnight after struggling for pace on Friday.
FP3 was a bizarre session as, aside from McLaren's drivers, drivers struggled to find more pace on the C6 tyre Pirelli brought for the first time this season.
Worth noting that Pirelli have reduced the minimum tyre pressure following Friday's running. That means they are not worried about tyre degradation but are looking to extract more performance from the tyres.
Verstappen posted his best time of the session on the Medium tyre and was only 0.181s off the pace of Norris after spending a considerable time of FP3 at the top of the timing screens.
The McLaren drivers were split by one tenth of a second with Verstappen breathing down the necks of Piastri and Norris.
With the C6 being unpredictable, the scene is set for an interesting qualifying to see how the teams will manage their tyre situation keeping in mind they need to keep enough for the race on Sunday.
Behind the top three, local hero Andrea Kimi Antonelli was fourth fastest in the Mercedes, but a whopping half a second off the pace his best lap posted on the Softs.
Charles Leclerc was fifth fastest in the Ferrari, less than a tenth behind Antonelli and 0.006s ahead of Carlos Sainz who was sixth in the Williams who continued their strong form.
Isack Hadjar was seventh fastest for the Racing Bulls while Liam Lawson was 14th, as George Russell was eighth fastest in the second Mercedes.
Alex Albon was ninth fastest for Williams as seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton completed the top ten.
After showing strong pace on Friday and early in FP3, Alpine dropped back with Pierre Gasly finishing the session 15th while Franco Colapinto was 18th.
Buildup towards FP3
McLaren were the pacesetters on Friday at Imola, Piastri and Norris only having to worry about each other in terms of competition as Alpine emerged as a surprise top contender with Gasly.
Mercedes were not as strong as expected and the high track temperatures may be the culprit here while Ferrari have some work to do to get their drivers happy with their brakes as Hamilton was quite vocal about that.
While Red Bull Racing have an upgrade, Verstappen struggled on Friday especially with rear grip and doesn't believe he can challenge the McLarens.
Aston Martin has a huge upgrade package on their AMR25, but their still is a huge question mark around the Silverstone-based squad after their Friday showing.
A new challenge for teams and drivers this week is the Pirelli C6 compound, the softest in the tyre range, which will be tricky to manage trying to extract pace from it while also keeping it alive for a whole lap.
The teams had Friday night to analyze the data and come up with solutions so let's see how the fare in FP3.
FP3 Session Highlights
The temperatures were quite higher as FP3 was given the green light compared to Friday as the track temperature was 46 degrees Celsius while air temperature was 22 degrees.
Norris was the first driver out on track, with Hard tyres bolted to his McLaren. He did one outlap and boxed at the end of it for a rear wing change.
Other than that, the drivers and teams took their time in the garage as FP3 was off to a slow start, but six minutes into the session the action started to ramp up.
More drivers joined with early runs on the Soft tyres while Ferrari sent both drivers out on the Medium. Verstappen, Piastri, and Norris also joined after with Medium tyres.
Piastri went fastest, but then Verstappen went faster with Norris later going second fastest.
Lawson, on the other hand, gave his VCARB a beating, wide on the kerbs at Turn 9, and asked his team over the radio to check the floor.
Soon Hadjar went fastest, Leclerc second fastest, but the latter was in the way of Alonso who aired his frustrations in a typical Alonso way saying Ferraris always think they are alone on track... A swipe at the drivers or the pitwall?
Russell reported a lot of bouncing in Turn 5 which he described as not lap time limiting but odd.
Halfway into the session, Lawson brought out a brief Yellow flag as he went off track at the exit of Tamburello. Replay showed he lost control of the rear of the car, performed a 360 but managed to keep going.
"I had no idea how... But I am good," the Kiwi radioed.
Replay showed Leclerc going slightly airborne having taken a lot of kerb into Variante Alta - Turns 14 and 15. Hamilton, moments earlier had to abort his lap and was gesturing with frustrations in the cockpit, but it was clear whether it was traffic or those pesky brakes again...
With 20 minutes remaining, Russell kicked off the qualifying simulations but had to abort his first lap after dipping into the gravel at Variante Alta.
"The ride is definitely a bit worse today," the Briton complained as more drivers started running on the Soft compound.
Hadjar then had a close moment with Sainz in the Williams while practicing a start at the pit exit.
Verstappen could not improve his time on his first run with the C6 tyre. Piastri backed out of his first lap on the same compound after going wide at Turn 12. Norris went to the top.
Hadjar and Leclerc both had wide moments on their flying laps on the Softs.
The C6 will be tricky as Norris complained about it over the team radio claiming everything felt worse when he bolted them on his car.
The Briton then went straight into the gravel at the Tamburello chicane. Hamilton then went into the gravel as the exit of the second Rivazza.
"I might have floor damage," Hamilton radioed and boxed for a check.
Tsunoda while on a lap on the Softs reported that he had zero grip on that compound.
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