John N
As Mercedes continued to show a newfound turn of pace, Charles Leclerc edged out championship rival Max Verstappen to lead the way in final practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver clocked a 1m 19.772s at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on his low-fuel soft tire run, 0.1s ahead of Red Bull’s Dutchman. Championship leader Leclerc narrowly pipped seven-time world champion teammate Lewis Hamilton (1m 19.844s) to third, with Mercedes 0.2s off the quickest time.
The Silver Arrows brought a raft of upgrades to Spain – and they appear to have found a solution to eradicate porpoising, which has made them significantly more competitive on the straights.
Home favorite Carlos Sainz was fifth, ahead of Sergio Perez. The top six ran two sets of soft tires and separated by under half a second on an unseasonably hot day in Barcelona.
Lando Norris ran the complete upgrade after his McLaren team repaired his floor damaged on a kerb on Friday, 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 teammate Vettel in 16th, with Alex Albon the leading Williams in 17th, nearly a second clear of teammate Nicholas Latifi.
Mick Schumacher’s session ended prematurely after a brake fire (above), the German clocking just four laps in his Haas, the only team not to bring an upgrade to Spain. The team is undergoing a precautionary gearbox change and aims to have Schumacher out in time for qualifying at 1600 local time.
Pierre Gasly failed to set a lap time, with his AlphaTauri team discovering an issue on his car after his installation lap that couldn’t be fixed before the session was over.
