2023 F1 British GP FP3: What did we learn?

The 2023 F1 British GP FP3 was a bit of a washout as rain intervened after just 25 minutes of running. Up until then, key protagonists like Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez had not even set their laps on soft tires and would there be a bit underprepared heading into qualifying.

Having said that, the qualifying session is in all likelihood expected to be in wet conditions, and hence most of the dry running we've had in the first three practice sessions could prove to be inconsequential.

There were, however some key takeaways from the session that were worth keeping an eye on. Let's take a look.

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2023 F1 British GP FP3: What did we learn?

#1 Max Verstappen is the benchmark irrespective of the conditions

Irrespective of what the conditions are, it's going to have a herculean effort to beat Max Verstappen at the 2023 F1 British GP. Even in qualifying, regardless of the fact that we could have changeable conditions in play, it's hard to look beyond Max.

For any team or a driver to succeed in these conditions, there needs to be an astute ability to continuously make the right calls at the right time. There's no team that's better at that than Red Bull, and once you add the talent of Max Verstappen, you almost have an unbeatable force at hand.

For the 2023 F1 British GP qualifying, Verstappen is the runaway favorite, and it would be almost foolish to bet against him.

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#2 Charles Leclerc seems to have recovered his mojo against Carlos Sainz

Charles Leclerc was in a spot of bother against Sainz in the last couple of races. The young Ferrari prodigy revealed after the race in Austria that he didn't feel comfortable in the car.

Carlos Sainz, on the other hand, was hounding him throughout the race in Austria and continued to extract more performance from the car.

Fast forward to the 2023 F1 British GP, and we have Leclerc finding his feet again. the Ferrari driver is back to extracting the best from the car and getting the much-needed results.

It will be interesting to see how Leclerc fares in qualifying, but the minimal running in FP3 did reveal that he was back doing what he does best.

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#3 Mercedes seems far better over a lap on Saturday

Mercedes' long runs were very impressive even on Friday, but the main area where the team appeared to struggle was over a lap. Neither of the two drivers was able to find the performance over a single lap and struggled a lot with the balance of the car.

Fast forward to Saturday, and both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell seem much happier with the car.

It does appear that Hamilton has the legs over Russell when we compare the two drivers, but overall, it does seem that Mercedes has made the step it needed to be where it ultimately wanted to be.

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#4 Williams is a genuine Q3 threat

The lap times put together by Williams on Friday did not make much sense. It made even less sense when the long runs were very competitive as well.

All of this just showed that the car's engine mode had been either turned up for a glory run of sorts or the new tires introduced for the 2023 F1 British GP were playing a role.

In FP3, it does appear that WIlliams is a strong car around Silverstone. Is it fast enough to be a challenger to the frontrunners? No, that's not happening. It could, however, be a genuine contender for a slot in Q3.

The team could target points in the 2023 F1 British GP, as the signs do look positive this time around.

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#5 Rain could turn the formbook on its head

Finally, though, let's get one thing straight. Even though Max Verstappen might be the benchmark, rain tends to be a great equalizer in these cases.

In qualifying, it might all come down to the driver being in the right play at the right time in the right car. Once that happens, then we can just throw the formbook of the three practice sessions of the 2023 F1 British GP into the bin.

Being successful in the wet weather requires a lot of things to fall in place and hence we could see a surprise or two at the end of the session.