Free Practice 3 in Melbourne: Norris flashes with McLaren. Leclerc and Perez follow. Aston Martin disaster

The final practice session in Melbourne surprisingly goes to McLaren, thanks to Lando Norris' fastest lap with a time of 1:19.117 followed by Leclerc and Perez. Ricciardo's other McLaren also did well not far from his partner. Are they the outsiders to fear this weekend?

The time has come for the teams to make their final preparations in Melbourne ahead of qualifying which will start at 08:00. Ferrari is coming off a good Friday in which it was able to immediately find a good feeling with both drivers setting the fastest times in the first and second sessions. The circuit, renewed, resurfaced and faster thanks to the modifications and the 4 DRS zones, is now back to being 3 for a safety issue! The race direction has in fact decided to reduce the DRS zones from 4 to 3 by removing the one in the section between turns 8 and 9.

Structure that seems to have been centered primarily by Ferrari, well balanced and performing especially in the more driven sections, both in the slow and fast corners. While Red Bull, which arrived very low in Australia, had to correct the shot and opt for a solution more similar to that of Ferrari, after presenting a lot of understeer especially with Verstappen.

The choices made on Friday afternoon at Red Bull are confirmed

Although Red Bull changed set-up during the race yesterday, it achieved optimal performance with the more loaded set-up used yesterday, proving to be very competitive in the long run unlike Ferrari which, yesterday also had to struggle with the phenomenon of pouring, which, although it didn't affect performance so much from a race perspective, risks being a problem for the riders. “We lacked a bit of balance, we are a little behind Ferrari but we can get closer. However, the car is quite stable and we have improved it. We must continue like this” commented yesterday Max Verstappen, who today, during FP3, despite wearing the same configuration as yesterday afternoon, still complained of a bit of instability at the rear.

Clouds in Melbourne and at Aston Martin

Temperatures in Melbourne are higher than yesterday but the sky continues to be overcast. Clouds that also envelop Sebastian Vettel, in his first race weekend this season after his absence due to Covid. Sebastian's day began yesterday with a fire on his AMR22, a problem that forced the German driver into the pits in the second session to allow the team to work and assemble a new Power Unit. This morning, having taken to the track regularly, he instead finished his wall run in the middle of the session. The same fate for his teammate, who blocked 5 minutes from the end. A complete mess, two cars to fix and very little time to do it.

He is wrong and corrected

Several excursions of the pilots in this session. Mercedes struggles and dangerously kisses the barriers with Hamilton, forced to fight with an unstable single-seater: "It's frustrating, because we're pushing, and even when you do a good lap, you look at the times and you see you're over a second behind the leader." In his career he has never had a car as slow as this W13. First time in my career.Lewis said after practice on Friday. Not an easy situation to correct overnight. Mercedes, forced by the porpoising problem to raise the car in Jeddah, decided to lower itself for Melbourne, to look for performance. Recall that Mercedes has not brought updates to Australia, unlike what it had announced. This is because the more unloaded wing planned for Melbourne would not have given any advantage over the new layout which now requires more downforce.

The Alpine is there

The Alpine continues to improve, and to show its potential. They want to hold on to 4th place in the standings and get as many points as possible. At the moment with Alonso they seem to be able to do it. Let's remember that Fernando mounts Power Unit number 3, the last of those granted by the regulation throughout the entire season.

Here are all the times from the last session