Lando Norris continued his strong start to the Austrian Grand Prix weekend by again leading a McLaren 1-2 in final practice, though decent improvements for Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and both Ferraris shrank what had been a scary-looking gap between the orange cars and the rest.
Once he hit the circuit Norris was straight back into his groove on a track he really enjoys - and he was never headed. He was the first driver into the 1m04s range and it took most of the session for anyone else to join him in that bracket.
Norris then set the fastest time of the weekend so far, a 1m04.324s lap that at one stage gave him a gap of almost seven tenths of a second over the rest of the field.
Team-mate Oscar Piastri required some patchwork repairs to the floor edges of his McLaren, after running through the gravel at Turn 9, but once that work was done he finally hooked up a strong lap to go second, just 0.108s down on Norris.
Verstappen ended the session third, 0.210s down on Norris, the Red Bull again appearing to bleed time through the highest-speed corners of sectors two and three, as it did on Friday.
After a difficult Friday with an updated floor to analyse and some gearbox problems on Lewis Hamilton’s car, Ferrari enjoyed a much stronger FP3.
Charles Leclerc was briefly-second fastest with a 1m04.574s lap, before Piastri and Verstappen shuffled him back to fourth.
Hamilton was 0.216s back from Leclerc in fifth, the last of the drivers to lap below 1m05s in this session.
Less than a tenth covered the next three cars: the two Mercedes of Canadian GP winner George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, plus Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin.
All three lapped in the 1m05.0s bracket and Stroll’s time indicated his strong FP2 pace - when he was fourth-quickest - was no fluke.
Yuki Tsunoda was ninth in the second Red Bull, six tenths down on Verstappen, while rookie Gabriel Bortoleto continued his impressive weekend in the upgraded Sauber, maintaining his record of lapping inside the top 10 in each practice session - though on this occasion he set an identical time to the nearest thousandth to Liam Lawson’s 11th-placed Racing Bulls.
Just 0.123s covered Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin in 12th to Pierre Gasly’s Alpine in 17th, suggesting the battle to escape Q1 will be fraught.
The other Alpine of Franco Colapinto was again the slowest of the cars to set a representative time, but he closed the gap to the next slowest car (this time Esteban Ocon’s Haas) to less than half a tenth, having been 0.258s adrift after FP2.
Hadjar has a massive spin after running wide at Turn 10 #F1 #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/EIlXniGTok
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 28, 2025
But it was Isack Hadjar’s Racing Bulls that ended this season slowest of all, having failed to set a time on soft compound Pirellis after spinning through 360 degrees at the final corner - something Verstappen did as well - and wrecking that set of tyres.
FP3 times
1 Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m04.324s
2 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.118s
3 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.210s
4 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.250s
5 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.466s
6 George Russell (Mercedes) +0.694s
7 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +0.729s
8 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +0.738s
9 Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) +0.815s
10 Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) +0.858s
11 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +0.858s
12 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +0.919s
13 Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) +0.959s
14 Alex Albon (Williams) +0.990s
15 Carlos Sainz (Williams) +1.002s
16 Ollie Bearman (Haas) +1.042s
17 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +1.042s
18 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +1.195s
19 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +1.222s
20 Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) +1.699s
