Verstappen leads the charge in FP3 at the 2022 French GP

Both Ferraris tried their absolute best, but just could not match the spectacular straight-line speed of Max Verstappen’s RB-18. Sainz, having new electronic components, even with soft compound tires, could not match the time of Verstappen who set up a time of 1:32:808 that too on medium compound tires.

Leclerc seemed to have difficulties on the hard tires, eventually spinning out on track, but kept pace behind his teammate, throughout the session. In the later half of the session, Verstappen switched to soft tires, and improved upon his previous time by another .606s to claim P1 and keep the red cars at bay.

Following the leaders, Hamilton snuck in at P4, though quite perplexed at the pace difference, despite having made strong developments to his car for this weekend. The Williams team came to surprise the whole paddock with their strong pace. Latifi this time around got the new modifications but stayed at P12, as his teammate Alex Albon secured P8.

Nevertheless, a strong session by both the drivers. In this session, it was also declared that HAAS driver Kevin Magnussen would start from the back of the grid, having taken new engine components. The Dane secured P8 in FP2 but had to settle behind in P16 in this session. Temperatures reached a high 29 degrees centigrade, as drivers checked their pace on all the different tire compounds. The complete driver standings for this session are given below: