Chasing Perfection: One-Lap Pace Dominates Final Practice in Barcelona
Saturday morning in Barcelona saw track temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius, similar to yesterday. George Russell and Lando Norris topped the times in yesterday’s sessions, and they were looking like the men to beat. High temperatures mean high degradation. It was crucial for drivers to watch their tyres today. Ferrari had a lot of work to do to try and match the pace of the front-runners, so let’s see what they have brought today.
The red light at the end of the pit lane went green at 12:30 local time, with Bottas leading the queue out of the pit lane, his teammate Perez following him out behind. Bottas lost a lot of his FP2 running yesterday due to issues with the car, which the Cadillac team did an amazing job of getting him out before the end of the session. Bottas set the first lap, a 1:19.998, to set the benchmark for the other 21 drivers to improve on. Only Cadillac was out on track, giving the two cars a lot of clean air to work with. Most of the other drivers were seen talking to their engineers, some of them not even in their race suits.
It was still all quiet on track 6 minutes into the session. Both Cadillacs pitted for a brief fly by, but had yet to set a recorded lap time. The rest of the grid seemed to play the patience game, opting to remain in their cool garages rather than face the blistering Spanish sun. Bottas set his flying lap, which was a 1:19.962, 0.149 seconds ahead of his teammate. Hulkenberg joined the fun on track and set an immediate lap time of 1:18.447, which put him just under 1.5 seconds in front of the Finn. The clock hit 12:45, and the track fell quiet, the 3 drivers that were on track had retreated back into their garaged but plenty of others were in their cars, ready to get their session going.
5 minutes later, more cars emerged. Williams sent both their cars out, same for Haas. Hulkenberg decided to go for another run too on the mediums, and Stroll emerged on the softs. Track degradation was always high here, with help from the high-speed circuit and high temperatures. Norris headed out too for his first run on the session on the soft tyres. From what it looked like, the teams were trying to protect their medium tyres for the race, with very few also having run on the softs so far this weekend. Verstappen ran the hard tyres in FP2, so it was possible Red Bull could have been forming an alternate strategy for the race. Norris set a 1:16.609 for his first lap of the day, almost a second quicker than Bortoleto and Hulkenberg behind in third.
Leclerc also came out of the Ferrari garage and started his flying lap. His lap looked decent until he slid off his way around Turn 10, but he still managed to slot into second, placing himself 0.076 back from the current World Champion. Piastri started his own push lap as his teammate crossed the line, but couldn’t keep up the pace and went into P3, having lost time in the final sector. We could also see Verstappen start his lap, and he set a purple Sector 1, green Sector 2, and green Sector 3, slotting into 3rd. Russell quickly took the first purple sector away, setting all purple sectors to go top with a 1:16.258. His Italian teammate went up to second shortly after setting a lap time which was 0.242 seconds slower.
The number 44 Ferrari went out to set its time, but said lap was 0.873s slower than the leader, putting him in 6th. The soft tyres are being destroyed in this heat. They are only holding on for one push lap before being unusable. The first red flag was flown 35 minutes into the session as a result of Bottas beaching himself in the gravel trap by Turn 10. He took too much kerb and lost his brakes, with him coming onto the radio to say he lost his brake pedal, and he told the team he “got very lucky there”. Cadillac seem to suffer with brake issues every weekend, with Perez’s brakes setting ablaze in Monaco, and Bottas retired from the race due to brake issues. With just over 20 minutes to go, the track went green again. There was still plenty of time for drivers to strap on a pair of softs and go for another flying run, which is customary in FP3 in Barcelona. Mercedes remained 1 and 2 during this red flag, showing they haven’t lost their momentum.
It was 10 minutes left on the clock when we started to see some soft tyre runs. Hulkenberg strapped the softs to start his run and go seventh. Russell also lowered his benchmark on the soft tyres with a 1:15.679, a time Piastri couldn’t catch and went second. His teammate slotted in third, making it a McLaren 2-3. Antonelli was on a flying lap, but it was disrupted by a heavy pack of traffic. Leclerc managed to end up in a McLaren sandwich, going 3rd with a lap which was 0.003 ahead of Norris. The times were improving rapidly in the final minute of the session.
So Mercedes showed their pace again in FP3, with Russell topping the times with a 1:15.679. Piastri and Leclerc followed behind, showing it could be a fight between 3 times for pole position later in the afternoon.
