As the session headed towards its halfway point, Kevin Magnussen had gone fastest on a lap of 1m 24.470s during what will be the Dane’s final weekend racing for Haas. George Russell, meanwhile, admitted to some confusion about his Mercedes as he informed his engineer: “Not sure what’s going on – [the] car feels okay, just slow.”
Elsewhere there looked to be some smoke emerging from the rear of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari, an unwelcome sight for the team after already being hit with a 10-place grid penalty for Charles Leclerc due to the Monegasque’s car needing a new energy store on Friday.
READ MORE: Leclerc admits suffering from food poisoning before ‘emotional’ day in Abu Dhabi driving alongside his brother Arthur
After limping back to the pits, Sainz was able to resume his running and promptly went second quickest – but his lap was still 0.161s off that earlier benchmark set by Magnussen. But as most of the field bolted on fresh soft tyres for their flying runs, Alex Albon displaced the Haas at the top by 0.092s.
The order continued to change further as more lap times came in, while Max Verstappen reported that his brakes were not working and Leclerc bemoaned that Ferrari were “nowhere”. McLaren, however, did not seem to be having such problems, with Piastri going quickest via his effort of 1m 23.433s to stay 0.193s clear of team mate Norris.
