In the last practice session, Verstappen beat Carlos Sainz by a very tiny gap of 0.057 seconds. Sainz had been doing well throughout the hour because he was the fastest on the medium tires earlier in the session.
Something interesting happened during this session. The soft tires wore out quickly after just one lap. Some drivers did great in the first part of the track with these tires, but they couldn’t keep up the pace in the rest of the track.
But towards the end of the session, teams figured out how to deal with this problem. Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri did well in the last few minutes of the session by using soft tires. George Russell also joined them with a good run, threatening the times set by Ferrari and Red Bull on medium tires.
Red Bull had some issues at the start with their braking, but they sorted it out. However, both Verstappen and Sergio Perez couldn’t match the performance of the Ferraris on the softer tires.
When Verstappen and Sainz switched to the soft tires, they couldn’t go faster than their previous times on the mediums.
Hamilton tried hard to beat Sainz’s time but couldn’t. Verstappen mentioned that the soft tires were tricky, especially in the high-speed corners.
But after some laps, drivers got used to the tires, and Verstappen managed to set the fastest time. However, just before the session ended, Leclerc took the top spot, making the top four drivers all very close in time.
Hamilton had some trouble in the beginning but improved later on, finishing fourth. Alonso also improved his time, moving up to sixth place. Piastri, Stroll, and Norris completed the top 10.
Tsunoda and Bottas were 11th and 12th, with Albon in 13th. Logan Sargeant didn’t participate due to car issues.
Also read: Leclerc Predicts Ferrari Will Soon Exert Pressure on Red Bull in Formula 1