FP3

Compared to yesterday’s two practices, the last one of this weekend, that took place this morning, avoided red flags as the teams were more careful ahead of qualifying.

Lewis Hamilton led the field in FP3, setting a fastest lap of 1:20.117, which was 0.093 seconds quicker than his teammate George Russell.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc secured third place, followed by McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Reigning World Champion Max Verstappen from Red Bull, who has only won three of the last 10 races, finished sixth, 0.251 seconds behind the fastest time.

Leclerc’s Ferrari teammate, Carlos Sainz, took seventh, with Alex Albon from Williams taking eighth place. His new teammate Franco Colapinto, a rookie who replaced Logan Sargeant and the first Argentinian driver on the F1 grid since 2001, finished right behind him, while Nico Hulkenberg completed the top 10.

The only bigger moment came right after the end of FP3, while the drivers were practicing starts from standing positions. Kevin Magnussen was forced to stop on the track, as his team had to do a restart of his car due to some technical problem but nothing serious.

Qualifying

Q1 didn’t offer many unexpected moments as both Sauber drivers finished their session completely at the back and will start from the last row, which kind of became a routine for them.

Franco Colapinto had the potential to get his Williams on his debut weekend into Q2, however, he made a mistake in his last fast lap and didn’t manage to improve.

The last 2 drivers, who weren’t able to make it to Q2 were Lance Stroll from Aston Martin and Yuki Tsunoda in his RB.

Q2 didn’t end up well for Alpine drivers as they only managed to secure P15 and P14 for the French team on tomorrow’s grid. P13 will belong to Kevin Magnussen, P12 to Daniel Ricciardo and P11 to Fernando Alonso, who will definitely give his best to get his Aston Martin in points tomorrow.

Alex Albon fantastically made Q3 in his Williams, same as Nico Hulkenberg, for whom it kind of became a tradition at this point. They lined up in the fifth row for tomorrow with in P9 and Hulkenberg in P10.

What was a bit expected, but still surprising in the end, were Red Bull qualifying struggles. Max Verstappen complained about a lack of grip and understeer of his RB20 throughout the whole session, which left him with 0.695s gap to pole in the end. He and his teammate Perez will find themselves only in the fourth row at the start of tomorrow’s race and will try to find their way up through the field.

It was an amazing session from McLaren as the Papaya drivers once again proved that their car is the fastest one on the grid now, with Norris taking the pole position and Piastri joining him in the first row.

The next two rows will be a mix of Ferrari and Mercedes drivers as George Russell managed to put his Mercedes in P3 in the last couple of seconds. He will start side by side with Charles Leclerc.

Carlos Sainz, despite strong looking lap in the beginning with a purple sector, will only start P5 tomorrow, with the man who stole his Ferrari seat for next year, Lewis Hamilton, lining up right next to him in P6.

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