Charles Leclerc maintained his grip on the top of the timing screens in Monaco and was also fastest at the end of the final practice session while Lewis Hamilton found the walls in the sister Ferrari.
While Leclerc was fastest, the session was a bizarre one and we can thank the Pirelli C6 tyre for that as the teams still seem to struggle to make it work.
While Max Verstappen was second fastest in the session, almost three tenths of the pace, the reigning Formula 1 champion dominated most of the session on the Medium tyre early on.
At some point Verstappen best time on Medium held its own at the top, over two tenths clear of the rivals and it took several attempts from Leclerc on the Softs to better it.
Verstappen just managed to improve his time by the slightest of margins when he switched to the Softs and was complaining that tyre was undriveable.
It wasn't only Verstappen that struggled with the Softs as several drivers also struggled when they out on a new set of the red-walled tyres for the final qualifying runs towards the end of the session.
Lando Norris was third fastest in the McLaren, 0.014s off the pace of Verstappen and was 0.151s ahead of teammate, Oscar Piastri who was fourth.
The Australian was out of sorts during the session and would need to find some solutions of he wishes to fight for pole later in the day.
Hamilton, before crashing, posted the fifth fastest time ahead of Alex Albon who was sixth fastest in the Williams while Liam Lawson was a strong seventh for the Racing Bulls.
While being 0.861s off the pace, Lawson has been in a good place so far this weekend teammate Isack Hadjar ended FP3 17th fastest.
Williams, once again had two cars in the top ten as Carlos Sainz was eighth fastest, 0.940s away from the top while Yuki Tsunoda was ninth fastest.
Kimi Antonelli was tenth in the Mercedes as his more experienced teammate, George Russell, was 11th, the Briton not happy with his W16 and vocal about it over the team radio during FP3.
Buildup towards FP3
Ferrari surprised everyone and even themselves after emerging as the fastest team after both practice sessions on Friday but Leclerc is still playing his chances down to fight for pole and a consecutive win around his home town.
McLaren did not seem fast out of the box, like they usually do on Fridays so there must be some pace to be unlocked as we head into the final practice as well as qualifying.
As for Red Bull Racing, Verstappen was happier with his car in FP1 and admitted changes made it worse in FP2, but the RB21 should have a dialed up power unit today while the team is known to find solutions overnight between Friday and Saturday.
As for Mercedes, they struggled on Friday and the high temperatures will not be kind to their W16.
Other than that, the C6 Pirelli tyres seems to be performing better than it did at Imola last week, but then Monaco is a different track.
The traffic has proven to be a menace on Friday and expect the same on Saturday with the drivers pushing the limits which means a meeting with the barriers is not far away.
FP1 Session Highlights
While clear dry conditions continued, the track temperature was slightly less as FP3 started, registering 38 degrees Celsius while air temperature was also less - 21 degrees.
The session was off to a slow start as several drivers were still out of their cars when the green light at the end of the pitlane was illuminated - Verstappen and Norris to name a couple.
Lawson was the first to go out with Hamilton and Hadjar following. Then Colapinto in the Alpine joined the action. Lawson soon reported that the grip on the track was very low.
Hamilton did an outlap and pitted while both Aston Martin drivers went out and scrubbed two sets of tyres each in preparation for the race - a Hard and a Medium.
15 minutes into the session - a few more drivers made their way out on track but the majority remained in their respective garages.
But then Hamilton and Leclerc head to the track and started their timed laps. Norris followed in the McLaren.
Hamilton reported: "The rear is sliding a lot."
Then Hulkenberg brought out a brief Yellow flag after going straight in the final corner but managed to keep his car away from the barrier. The German reversed and was back on his way.
20 minutes into the session and all the drivers were out on track. Most of the drivers were on the Soft tyre while Verstappen started on the Mediums.
Hamilton and Sainz had a moment where they almost touched. The former said he tried to get out of the way of the Williams driver but couldn't see beyond the car behind him.
Bortoleto then reported that he hit the wall and asked his team to check the car while in the meantime, Leclerc and Norris were having their own qualifying session, trading blows and alternating on the top spot of the timing screens.
Verstappen soon joined the action and went to the top but on Medium tyres, his rivals were on Softs.
Hadjar came upon a slow Tsunoda who was leisurely driving around at the end of the tunnel the Racing Bulls driver just managing to avoid him.
Colapinto had a close moment with the barriers at the exit of the swimming pool but got away with it. The Argentine also had a moment with Bearman in the Haas while Norris got impeded by a strolling Stroll.
Sainz had some good news to his Williams team reporting he is happy with his car as it was giving him a good feeling but still wanted to find out where he could go even faster.
With 20 minutes remaining, the drivers bolted on fresh Soft tyres to go and do some serious qualifying runs.
Tsunoda reported "so much instability" after his first run on the new Softs while Verstappen reported a lot of "four wheel sliding" in Turn 8 and the final corner.
Several drivers, including Verstappen did no improve their times on the new Soft. Verstappen then reported that he had no grip.
As for Albon, well check him out...
Verstappen then reported the the C6 tyres are undriveable... That was after a brief visit to the pits.
With less than two minutes remaining, Hamilton brought out the Red Flag after hitting the wall going uphill towards the Casino section.
Replay showed that he was surprised by cars in front of him. He brakes hard and lost control of his car and ended up in the wall.
The session wasn't restarted.
Monaco GP FP3 Classification
Latest News
Loading
