George Russell snatched the top spot from Kimi Antonelli at the end of final practice for the Austrian Grand Prix, going fastest with a lap of 1m 07.096s and leaving his Mercedes team mate 0.038s behind. Antonelli had controlled much of FP3 before Russell’s late run changed the order at the Red Bull Ring.
That made the last session before Formula One qualifying more than a routine warm-up. Lewis Hamilton was third, 0.115s off Russell, Oscar Piastri was fourth, Lando Norris fifth and Max Verstappen sixth after a session that opened at 31 degrees Celsius and quickly began to show who had single-lap pace for the afternoon ahead.
Norris had been first to make an early statement after 20 minutes, setting 1m 07.832s before Antonelli lowered the mark to 1m 07.134s. Russell then found just enough in the closing stages to go 0.038s quicker, while Hamilton briefly looked threatening after going fastest in the first sector before ending the lap 0.77s off Antonelli. For anyone tracking the form guide into qualifying, the late shift at the top mattered far more than the early headline.
Elsewhere, Carlos Sainz was shown a black and white flag for driving unnecessarily slowly, a warning that fits the way stewards police gaps and pace on runs where one car can hold up another without making a passing move. Sainz later slid off track entering the final corner, a messy end to a session in which he had already dropped to P18. Verstappen also reported “constant weird interference,” a phrase that pointed to an issue affecting what he was feeling from the car rather than a simple pace problem.
The wider picture remains clear even if the margins are tiny: Russell ended the Austrian Grand Prix’s third and final practice session on top, Antonelli was close enough to keep Mercedes in the fight, and the rest of the front-runners were packed tightly behind them. After problems cut short Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas in Free Practice 2, the final tune-up offered the cleanest read yet on who arrived at qualifying with real speed in hand.
Formula One qualifying follows, and the question now is whether Russell’s late burst was a one-lap flourish or the shape of the afternoon to come.
