Verstappen sets the pace in last practice session in Miami

The weather in Miami on Saturday continued to be favorable for drivers and teams. The morning practice session took place on a dry track, with the air temperature reaching 30 degrees Celsius and the track heated up to 46 degrees. The conditions were similar to yesterday's, but drivers were paying attention to the stronger wind, which made their work even more difficult on the challenging track. 

The track's grip did not improve significantly during Saturday morning. Most drivers had a lot of trouble keeping their cars on the track, with every excursion beyond the racing line resulting in a smaller or larger trip outside the track boundaries. The critical point, as yesterday, was turn 17, located after a long straight. Drivers also had problems in turn seven and at the beginning of the lap. 

As if that wasn't enough, a moment later, cameras captured another billionaire, Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, on the McLaren pit wall. It's scary to think what will happen in the paddock at the Las Vegas track, which returns to the F1 World Championship calendar with a bang in the second half of the season. 

Drivers continued to complain loudly about the track's grip, and Max Verstappen remained the fastest. The Dutchman set the pace from the beginning, driving on soft tires. Neither the Ferrari drivers nor Sergio Perez were able to threaten his position. In the end, the two-time world champion was over 0.4 seconds faster than second-placed Charles Leclerc. Perez and Sainz were more than half a second behind the championship leader. 

In the Mercedes team, they decided to split the work and test two different setup configurations to decide which direction to take for the rest of the weekend due to the significantly changing track surface, but it did not translate into their performance. Russell was 10th, and Hamilton was only 13th. 

Behind the top four, Alpine was this time in fifth place, which after two dramatic races may want to bounce back from the bottom. The question is whether they will succeed this weekend. Before qualifying, Ocon was slightly faster than Gasly. 

Valtteri Bottas also performed well in the third practice session in Miami, securing seventh place ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Alex Albon, and the aforementioned George Russell, who closed the top ten. 

Drivers managed to avoid close encounters with the barriers. The McLaren drivers had a poor session, with Lando Norris finishing last, just ahead of Nyck de Vries, who is also going through a difficult period at AlphaTauri.

🏁⏱️#MiamiGP🇺🇸 FP3 results by driver:

1. VERSTAPPEN (1:27.535)
2. Leclerc (+ 0.406)
3. Perez (+ 0.515)
4. Sainz (+ 0.590)
5. Ocon (+ 0.872)
6. Gasly (+ 0.893)
7. Bottas (+ 0.921)
8. Hulkenberg (+ 0.962)
9. Albon (+ 1.026)
10. Russell (+ 1.071)#F1 pic.twitter.com/tJw3ImKNoH

— Racing Union (@TheRacingUnion) May 6, 2023

Even before the session began, the presence of Elon Musk, the eccentric billionaire who created the PayPal system and later became known for companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, caused a sensation on social media. Musk visited the Red Bull garage, which became a stop for the most influential F1 personalities. Greg Maffei and Stefano Domenicali also dropped by for a brief chat with Musk and Christian Horner.

Free Practice 3 Results: