Piastri heads in FP3 as McLaren shows the way

Oscar Piastri handed McLaren a clean sweep of F1 Spanish Grand Prix practice by comfortably topping FP3 in Barcelona.

Saturday’s final practice session got off to a sluggish start, with little meaningful running early on in the searing midday heat.

Carlos Sainz drew applause from his Spanish fans as he led the early running aboard the Williams, which hadn’t looked at its very best on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Friday.

Sainz was soon demoted by Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, with the former leading the way courtesy of a 1m13.941s lap on soft tyres.

After 23 minutes Mercedes’ George Russell banked a 1m13.396s which was four tenths quicker than Leclerc or indeed anyone else, as team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli didn’t get much closer than Leclerc on his soft-shod attempt.

Approach the final third of the session Max Verstappen fired up his Red Bull to pip Russell by 0.021s, with a 1m13.375s lap on softs.

Verstappen particularly impressed through Barcelona’s final sector, which was restored to its former glory a few years ago and features two extremely fast right-hand corners that suit the Red Bull RB21 to a tee.

Norris’ reply was not forthcoming as the Briton had to bail out of his lap after a big moment into the high-speed Turn 9 right-hander, taking to the unused chicane that serves as a runoff area.

His race engineer informed the Briton that the McLaren suffered from porpoising, the dreaded bouncing phenomenon that proved problematic as the current rules were introduced in 2022.

Norris’ next effort did prove to be enough to depose Russell – with a 1m12.913s – but team-mate Oscar Piastri proved much more hooked up. The Australian championship leader fired in a 1m12.387s lap inside the final 10 minutes to comfortably take top spot until the end.

Norris followed half a second behind on a used set of softs as McLaren once again made it a clean sweep of all three practice sessions, with Norris leading FP1 and Piastri topping FP2.

Leclerc jumped to third, a massive seven tenths behind, ahead of Russell and Verstappen, who didn’t push for a late improvement.

Like yesterday, Isack Hadjar was best of the rest by taking sixth in the Racing Bulls car, ahead of Antonelli. Fernando Alonso also continued Friday’s positive trajectory aboard the improved Aston Martin by taking eighth.

Lewis Hamilton was a more muted ninth as he struggled to replicate Leclerc’s laptimes and reported a late gear shift issue, the seven-time world champion 1.1s behind Piastri, while the second RB of Liam Lawson completed the top 10.

In an otherwise uneventful session Williams driver Alex Albon was limited to just five laps, with his squad investigating an undiagnosed issue with his car.

F1 Spanish GP – FP3 results