Charles Leclerc confirmed Ferrari’s one-lap pace in Saturday’s final practice in Melbourne, the Monegasque edging Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 0.020s.
The performance hinted at a battle royale in this afternoon’s qualifying, but while the leading duo set its fastest laps on the soft tyre in the dying seconds of the session, Sainz’s flyer was achieved much earlier on the medium compound.
Behind the trio, Lewis Hamilton revived his prospects after a dismal Friday while his Mercedes teammate George Russell completed the five. Once again, the session yielded a remarkably tight field with the top eight runners separated by a mere 0.373s.
Williams’ plight has been well chronicled since yesterday, but one could only spare a compassionate thought for Logan Sargeant as FP3 kicked off and the American looked on in his team’s garage, having played the role of the sacrificial lamb following Alex Albon’s heavy crash in FP1 on Friday.
Hard and medium tyres were the norm at the start of the session, with both Red Bulls kicking off their efforts on the yellow-walled rubber and setting the early benchmarks.
While Verstappen continued to lower the latter, Ferrari’s Sainz followed suit on the mediums to take the lead with a 1m13.791s.
Mercedes’ drivers were the first to be sent out on the softs, and Hamilton was likely unimpressed to find himself 1.5s adrift from the frontrunners. Having been told that he was losing a full second on the straights alone, the Briton appeared astonished by his deficit.
As the session unfolded and reached the halfway mark, Leclerc leapfrogged the Red Bull pair to make it a Ferrari 1-2, with the Monegasque 0.296s adrift from Sainz.
Despite his apparent woes and a moment at Turn 11, Hamilton pushed up to P5 helping form a Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, Aston martin two-by-two formation among the top eight.
A qualifying simulations set in with 15 minutes remaining on the clock, a solid lap by Piastri elevated the local hero to third, making the McLaren charger the fastest runner on the soft tyre.
Meanwhile, Russell buzzed the Mercedes pit wall to vent his frustration over encountering a slow moving … Hamilton “at shit points” on the track.
Ironically, shortly after his complaint, the seven-time world champion hammered in a lap that was good for P2, just 0.015s behind Sainz and comfortably ahead of Russell who moved up to P3, sending Leclerc down to fourth.
Improvements were scarce in the closing stages of the session, although Leclerc recouped third from Russell.
Oddly, despite everyone conducting their quali sims on the softs, Sainz’s flyer on the medium remained on top, until soft-shods Leclerc and Verstappen unleashed their might in the final seconds to go top.
But with just 0.300s separating the top seven its still all to play for in qualifying.
Behind the leading Ferrari-Red Bull trio, Hamilton and Russell in P4 and P5 boosted Mercedes’ prospects although pole will be a tall order.
Thereafter, Alonso, Perez, Piastri, Stroll and Norris completed the top ten.
Yuki Tsunoda in tenth position was again the lead RB, the Japanese charger - the final driver to be withing a second of Leclerc - edging Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas who clocked in ahead of Albon, Zhou, Ocon, Hulkenberg, Magnussen while a lowly Daniel Ricciardo and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly closed out the field.
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