» Leclerc fastest, Vettel crashes in FP3

Ferrari staged something of a fightback in the final practice session at the Monaco Grand Prix, with Charles Leclerc delighting his local fans with the fastest time of the weekend. In typical Ferrari fashion, however, there’s a risk that neither he nor teammate Sebastian Vettel will be a contender for pole position.

The Italian team’s build-up to qualifying took a major hit – quite literally – when Vettel locked up and slid his car into the barriers at Sainte-Dévote barely fifteen minutes into the one-hour session. The German will have a nervous wait to see whether his car can be repaired in the two-hour window in time for qualifying.

A bigger worry the team may face is whether Leclerc will be hit with a grid penalty after he was reported for driving too quickly under the Virtual Safety Car conditions that were triggered by his teammate’s accident. The last driver to be penalised for such an infraction was Vettel himself at the 2018 United States Grand Prix, ironically for a VSC triggered by (then Sauber driver) Leclerc…

What will encourage Ferrari was the pace shown by Leclerc, who managed to break Mercedes’ stranglehold on the top of the classification that has stretched to FP3 at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in April.

The Monégasque native managed to outpace Valtteri Bottas to the tune of just 0.053 seconds, while Thursday pace-setter Lewis Hamilton placed third-fastest, two-tenths of a second adrift.

Fourth and fifth behind the Mercedes duo – whose cars were fitted with red-painted halos as a touching tribute to Niki Lauda – were the Red Bull Racing Hondas of Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly. With both drivers from the Milton Keynes team lapping within half a second of Leclerc’s best time, they remain very much in the mix ahead of qualifying.

Finishing the session a very impressive sixth-fastest was Antonio Giovinazzi in the Alfa Romeo. The GP2 Series runner-up outpaced teammate Kimi Räikkönen (P9) for the second session this weekend on the event of the Finn’s 300th Grand Prix appearance, with the pair separated by Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat and the Haas Ferrari of Kevin Magnussen.

Alexander Albon completed the top ten in the second Toro Rosso, while the Renaults of Nico Hülkenberg and defending Monaco Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo showed improved pace to be eleventh and twelfth respectively.

FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX DE MONACO 2019 – FREE PRACTICE SESSION 3
	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari SF90	1:11.265		26
2.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes-AMG Motorsport W10	1:11.318	+ 0.053	27
3.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG Motorsport W10	1:11.478	+ 0.213	27
4.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing RB15	1:11.539	+ 0.274	24
5.	Pierre Gasly	Red Bull Racing RB15	1:11.738	+ 0.473	27
6.	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo Racing C38	1:12.170	+ 0.905	23
7.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda STR14	1:12.194	+ 0.929	27
8.	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team VF-19	1:12.270	+ 1.005	25
9.	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo Racing C38	1:12.308	+ 1.043	27
10.	Alexander Albon	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda STR14	1:12.338	+ 1.073	32
11.	Nico Hülkenberg	Renault F1 Team RS19	1:12.489	+ 1.224	26
12.	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault F1 Team RS19	1:12.519	+ 1.254	26
13.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team VF-19	1:12.566	+ 1.301	27
14.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF90	1:12.583	+ 1.318	7
15.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren F1 Team MCL34	1:12.862	+ 1.597	29
16.	Lando Norris	McLaren F1 Team MCL34	1:12.914	+ 1.649	26
17.	Sergio Pérez	Racing Point F1 Team RP19	1:13.232	+ 1.967	23
18.	Lance Stroll	Racing Point F1 Team RP19	1:13.622	+ 2.357	21
19.	Robert Kubica	ROKiT Williams Racing FW42	1:14.086	+ 2.821	27
20.	George Russell	ROKiT Williams Racing FW42	1:14.305	+ 3.040	27