F1: Leclerc nips Verstappen in final Spanish GP practice

It was three for three fastest practice sessions for Charles Leclerc, as he beats Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and George Russell’s Mercedes in the final practice for the Spanish GP in Barcelona.

That bodes well for the Ferrari fans in the crowd, as they start to eagerly await qualifying.

Leclerc’s lap of 1m19.772s was just 0.072s better than Verstappen and 0.148s better than Russell.

Lewis Hamilton was 4th in the 2nd Mercedes, while Carlos Sainz Jr. rounded out the top-5 in the #55 Ferrari.

Lando Norris, who was running the full upgrade after his McLaren team completed repairs to his floor damaged on a curb on Friday, was seventh, with Kevin Magnussen the leading Haas in eighth.

Valtteri Bottas, in a heavily updated Alfa Romeo, was ninth as Alpine’s Esteban Ocon completed the top 10.

Daniel Ricciardo was P11 and half a second adrift of McLaren teammate Norris, with Sebastian Vettel putting the significantly upgraded Aston Martin AMR22 12th.

Fernando Alonso, driving in front of a huge home crowd, was 13th, ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu and Yuki Tsunoda in the AlphaTauri. Lance Stroll was 0.5s behind team mate Vettel in 16th with Alex Albon the leading Williams in 17th, nearly a second clear of team mate Nicholas Latifi.

There were no red flags in the session, but a brake fire wrecked Mick Schumacher’s session, while Pierre Gasly was limited to one lap thanks to a heat shield failure that led to an overheating engine.

Qualifying is just two hours’ away now, scant time to turn these cars around, make any changes that need making and get them ready to go in the fight for pole. Starting on the front row has been crucial here for much of this event’s history, 90% of wins coming from P1 or P2 on the grid.

Six drivers in with a shout of pole, plenty wanting that ‘best of the rest’ midfield berth, reliability woes and soaring temperatures. A big crowd on hand, blistering tires (the reds are only good for one fast lap), two Spaniards in the field and a few drivers needing to prove a point.

Qualifying should be intense.

Practice 3 Results