Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) was the fastest in the third and last free practice session of the British Grand Prix, tenth appointment of the calendar. The Monegasque, who was unable to ride in the second session at Silverstone yesterday due to a failure in the fuel system of his car, has retaliated by setting the best time of the weekend so far (1.27.419) and is running for the fight for pole position on the British track.
Contrary to his teammate, Carlos Sainz lost a lot of minutes in the garage today and ended up in sixth position, without being able to improve his time due to the appearance of rain in the second leg of the session.
Mercedes, who hid her ‘letters’ on Friday, has assembled the soft compound and has shown that they are practically at the level of Ferrari at one lap. Lewis Hamilton was 1 tenth of a second behind Verstappen’s time, who was leading the track in the early stages. The Briton, eight times winner in the home race, has slipped into the ‘top five’.
With just over 20 minutes left for the end of the session, the race management warned of the “wet” track conditions. The rain has made its appearance and although Leclerc has tried to continue with slicks, finally all the riders have switched to intermediate tires and no one has been able to lower their times.
By race pace, Red Bull seems much better than the rest of the teams, although Verstappen did not risk unnecessarily with water and finished eighth without resorting to the soft ones. The surprise for this afternoon’s ‘qualification’ (4:00 p.m.) has been the speed of the Williams and especially of Alex Albonwho was second in the table less than 2 tenths of Leclerc’s time and ahead of Fernando Alonso, third with Aston Martin.
The last free practice sessions in Great Britain have made it clear that the fight to enter Q3 at Silverstone is going to be very ‘expensive’, with Red Bull y Ferrari as main candidates for pole position and a balanced fight between McLaren, Aston Martin, Alpine, Mercedes and Williams.
2023-07-08 11:59:34
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