Max Verstappen set the top time over Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez in an engrossing FP3 time attack ahead of qualifying for the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix.

In the heat of Sakhir, teams took their time to emerge but the track was abuzz with activity after 15 minutes and the benchmarks kept tumbling. Verstappen eventually went fastest with a time of 1m 32.544s – Ferrari’s Leclerc just 0.096s away, after overcoming a spin into the Turn 11 gravel – while Red Bull team mate Perez was 0.25s off in P3.

George Russell took fourth for Mercedes, 0.4s off the pace, having complained of understeer in low-speed corners early on. Team mate Lewis Hamilton took sixth, six-tenths off, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz splitting them for P5.

Haas and Alfa Romeo enjoyed an exciting turn of pace in FP3, with Kevin Magnussen seventh and Alfa’s Valtteri Bottas eighth ahead of team mate Zhou Guanyu.

That left Lance Stroll rounding out the top 10 for Aston Martin.

Lando Norris finished 11th for McLaren, his team mate Daniel Ricciardo focusing on medium-tyred runs until he shot to P15 late on, in another quiet showing for the Woking squad.

Aston Martin substitute Nico Hulkenberg took P12 ahead of FP1 leader Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri (P13) and Haas’s Mick Schumacher in 14th – Haas having used hard tyres early on in a differing strategy to their rivals.