Gasly leads the wet FP3 as Russell Spin causes a red flag

Rain on Saturday morning in Turkey left the track damp for the start of the last practice session, so the drivers could do their first exploratory laps on full rain tires.

After Lando Norris switched from rain to intermediate tires 15 minutes into the session, a number of other riders followed suit when a dry line continued to emerge.

But the session was broken off with the red flag after 22 minutes when Russell turned off the track at Turn 2 after hitting the white line at the inner apex of the corner.

The spin left Russell’s Williams FW43B car stranded in the gravel and, although it didn’t hit the wall, it couldn’t start again, forcing officers to throw a red flag.

The session resumed five minutes later after Russell’s car was removed, but Russell’s spin didn’t stop drivers from sticking to the intermediates once they got out as the track continued to dry up.

While riders like Nikita Mazepin, Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc all spun, the track improved throughout the session, with many struggling with overheated front tires as they dried out but remained too wet to switch to slicks.

Shortly after the session resumed, Verstappen was able to pull away from the field for a second before turning a lap later into Turn 9, which he described as a “nice 360”.

After setting the fastest lap times with Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, Verstappen was eventually beaten by Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez less than 20 minutes before the end when the Mexican was 0.3 seconds ahead.

But it was Gasly who, not long after Perez’s efforts, set the fastest of all laps, setting a time of 1: 30.447 minutes to place AlphaTauri in the lead.

Gasly told AlphaTauri that he had damaged his front tires because the track was now so dry and most struggled to improve their times in the closing stages due to the overheating.

Verstappen moved up to second late, 0.164 seconds behind Gasly’s time, but title rival Lewis Hamilton only finished 18th as Mercedes was limited to the reigning world champion who only completed five laps.

Perez finished third FP3 for Red Bull while Ferrari continued its good training form in Turkey as Carlos Sainz Jr and Charles Leclerc finished fourth and fifth in FP3. Leclerc asked to try slick tires in the final minutes of the session but stayed on intermediates for his final run.

Fernando Alonso finished sixth for Alpine after escaping a gravel run at Turn 1, while Kimi Raikkonen was one of the few late improvers, finishing seventh for Alfa Romeo. Race director Michael Masi called the team for an informal chat after Raikkonen had almost been dismissed in the pit lane by Mick Schumacher.

Yuki Tsunoda finished eighth in the second AlphaTauri car, but got angry over the radio after being hindered by Perez in the middle of the session through Turn 11 in the spray, even though the race management was not aware of what was happening.

Bottas finished the session for Mercedes in ninth place, while Esteban Ocon completed the top 10 for Alpine and crossed the finish line ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi and Sebastian Vettel.

Schumacher took 13th place for Haas.

Mazepin finished 17th ahead of Hamilton in the Haas sister car, with the timesheets aided by Williams couples Nicholas Latifi and the stranded Russell.

Turkish GP: FP3 results