Leclerc beats Verstappen to top final practice

Ferrari’s points leader used his later soft tyre run to turn in a 1m19.772s and he ended the session just seven hundredths in front of his likely end-of-season title rival Verstappen.

But as Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez struggled to match their respective stablemates, the updated Mercedes W13 continued its impressive showing from Friday as George Russell returned third ahead of his seven-time world champion team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Replicating his session-topping form from the first and second practice sessions, Leclerc effectively won the opening gambit with his first soft-tyre qualifying simulation.

The Ferrari driver posted a 1m20.278s to sit top after his first attempt but was two tenths slower on his second effort even though he remained in first place ahead of Verstappen and Sainz.

Verstappen did not emerge from the Red Bull garage for a full 25 minutes and at the first time of asking, the Friday race stint pacesetter crossed the line in 1m20.475 on the C3 soft tyre.

Sainz split the Red Bull pair as he ran to third in front of a home crowd, but like Leclerc, the Spaniard ran two tenths slower when he bolted for another soft compound flying run.

Despite Verstappen complaining about the low-speed turn-in of his RB18, his climb to second knocked Russell to fifth – the Brit ahead of the first representative time of the day set by Valtteri Bottas, who missed the bulk of FP2 after an engine shutdown.

Hamilton, meanwhile, was sixth early on but was hobbled by a problem activating his DRS.

The majority of the grid elected for soft tyre runs, and that left Daniel Ricciardo as the fastest C2 medium runner, as the McLaren entered the final 25 minutes of the hour in 12th.

Ricciardo’s team-mate Lando Norris had been the first driver to head out in the session and he immediately delivered a five-lap stint on medium tyres to bed in his new chassis.

The MCL36 had required sweeping repairs after Norris…