Formula 1 News: Sainz Jr. tops final practice for 2024 Spanish GP

Much to the cheers of the Spanish fans, Carlos Sainz Jr. turned a lap of 1m13.013s to top Practice 3 for the 2024 Spanish GP at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

In the incident-free session, Sainz pushed his #55 Ferrari to the top time on Pirelli soft tires, 0.030s faster than the McLaren of Lando Norris, 0.037s faster than the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and 0.074s faster than the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

The top-4 are very close and George Russell in the #63 Mercedes is not far back in 5th, 0.151s behind.

Fastest in FP2, Lewis Hamilton was 6th, 0.346s behind Sainz and ahead of Sergio Perez in 7th who was 0.710s slower than Sainz Jr.

Sainz finished on top there, 0.030s ahead of Norris and 0.037s ahead of Leclerc with Verstappen in fourth. But Norris didn’t get the best out of his lap, running on slightly older tires – and thus seems very well-placed heading into qualifying.

Leclerc and Norris made slight contact late in the session and they have been called to see the Stewards.  Verstappen also impeded Sainz Late, but not on purpose.

Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull all look into the mix, with a potential seven-way battle, the only driver not quite in the mix at the moment being Perez.

It is certainly all to play for in qualifying coming up at 10:00AM ET.

2024 Spanish GP Practice 3 Results