Lando Norris Goes fastest, Aston Martin troubles- Australian GP FP3

The final Practice session of the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix managed to give us some exciting racing moments. Lando Norris going on pole, Alonso was in the Top 5 and both the Aston Martins crashed out in an amazing turn of events.

Too much of a good thing

20 minutes before the session, the FIA announced that they would be reducing the DRS Zones to 3 from the initially planned 4.
“For safety reasons, DRS Zones will be reduced to 3 for the remainder of the event.”
“DRS detection 1 will be moved to before Turn 9, DRS activation 1 will be after Turn 10, DRS detection 2 will remain unchanged, with the following activation zones will be renumbered accordingly,” read the statement.

McLaren turn things around

McLaren continued to improve their car with Lando Norris setting an impressive time to beat the Ferrari, Redbull and even the slick Fernando Alonso. His teammate Daniel Riccardo finished in P6. The Australian Driver stated earlier that anything in the top 10 on Sunday would feel like a victory for the team who struggled with the pace from the start of the season.

Norris takes P1 with a 1:19.117 💪

Leclerc is behind and Alonso rounds up the top 3! ✨#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/h5qyWpywoB

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 9, 2022

Aston Martin’s double trouble

Trouble continued for Aston Martin. With the car of Lance Stroll failing to get out in the initial stages of FP3.
21 minutes into the session, Sebastian Vettel found himself into the wall and caused a Red flag as his car had to be taken off the track.
Lance Stroll managed to get himself up and running following his teammate’s crash. However, while he was on a hot lap, the Canadian driver lost the car at a corner and wet straight into the barriers.
The Aston Martin garage is surely going to be one busy place before qualifying starts.

Alonso is clearly enjoying himself

2 time Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso went on pole multiple times during the session as the Spanish driver rolled back the years and constantly set the fastest time between the Ferrari and Redbull cars, Classic Vintage Alonso.
His French Teammate Esteban Ocon however struggled and only managed to get his car into P13, more than a second off the pace of the McLaren.

Mercedes drivers battle against their cars

Mercedes cars struggled to keep up with the packs, Both drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were fighting to keep their cars on track while they ran their cars wide on multiple occasions, but importantly, they kept their cars out of the wall.
Hamilton finished the session in p8 and Russell in P11.

The Redbull and Ferrari Drivers continued to battle it out at the top of the table with drivers switching positions between themselves, Max Verstappen ran the entire session on medium tyres as the Redbull team gathered precious data on tyre degradation. He was out to set a time on the soft tyre when the crash of Lance Stroll caused the session to be called off with 3 minutes to go.

🚩 again, STR is in the wall at T11, and the session will not be resumed.

— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) April 9, 2022

HAAS team principal Gunther Steiner said that Kevin Magnussen was normal again after the driver face a stomach issue yesterday. The drivers however did not carry their momentum into this session hence, they were down in the bottom half of the table.

This is how the timing sheet looked like at the end of FP3

Lando Norris finishes FP3 in the top spot 👊#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/nFDPezgIWi

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 9, 2022

The qualifying session starts at 11:30 am IST, 9th April.