Alonso tops final F1 practice in Bahrain

Fernando Alonso topped the third and final practice session in Bahrain on Saturday afternoon.

He beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by five-thousandths of a second as Aston Martin continue to look remarkably impressive.

It is the first time since the 2014 Singapore Grand Prix that the Spaniard has topped two free practice sessions in the same weekend.

READ MORE: F1 2023 Bahrain GP – FP3 Results

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Sergio Perez was marginally behind in third, while Lewis Hamilton and George Russell showed improvement for Mercedes as they ended up fourth and sixth respectively, either side of Charles Leclerc in a quiet session for Ferrari.

Alonso’s team-mate Lance Stroll went seventh fastest ahead of Carlos Sainz, with Oscar Piastri and Pierre Gasly rounding out the top 10 – the Frenchman pipping his Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon.

Zhou Guanyu was 12^th, while Lando Norris himself had a quiet early afternoon as he finished P13. Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg wound up 14^th and 15^th respectively for Haas, while AlphaTauri’s difficult weekend continued as Yuki Tsunoda went 16^th.

Valtteri Bottas managed 17^th for Alfa Romeo, while Williams endured another tough hour as Logan Sargeant set a lap time good enough for 18^th, just ahead of Alex Albon. At the foot of the order in the other AlphaTauri was Nyck de Vries.

Alonso will go into qualifying looking for his first pole position since the 2012 German Grand Prix.