Max Verstappen dominates final practice as Lewis Hamilton only fifth fastest

Max Verstappen in actie op Circuit Paul Ricard. — Photo: © LAT Images

French Grand Prix

Verstappen dominates final practice as Hamilton only fifth fastest

Verstappen ended final practice over seven-tenths clear of second place

Sam Hall

Saturday 19 June 2021 13:05 Updated: 14:25

Max Verstappen ended final practice over seven-tenths clear of second-place Valtteri Bottas with championship rival Lewis Hamilton struggling in fifth.

After topping second practice on Friday, Verstappen and Red Bull confirmed their pace when comfortably topping the Saturday morning session with a one minute 31.300secs, a time 0.747s faster than Mercedes driver Bottas.

In each of the three timed runs, it was the Dutchman that set the fastest time in the battle between himself and the two Mercedes drivers although his second time was deleted for a track limits infringement at turn six.

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Bottas has struggled in recent weeks but appeared a driver reborn as he enjoyed a margin over Hamilton of over two-tenths in each of his timed runs.

Hamilton had been third on the timesheets for the majority of the session, but the man second in the championship standings dropped to fifth after Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez entered late times to jump to third and fourth.

McLaren had struggled in the gusty, hot conditions on Friday afternoon but recovered in the cooler conditions of final practice with Lando Norris sixth and Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the top 10.

The session was slow to get going with drivers unwilling to clean the track for their rivals but it was Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher that first left the garage with 10 minutes of the session gone.

A turn two incident involving Mazepin was the only off of practice with the Russian sliding wide, going sideways over the controversial sausage kerbs and shredding his tyres down to the carcass.