Russell shades Leclerc in FP3 as Bearman crashes

George Russell shaded Charles Leclerc in FP3 for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as McLaren and Mercedes got on terms with Red Bull and Ferrari ahead of qualifying.

Leclerc had showed good progress throughout the session and managed to sit on top of the order after beating an impressive lap from Oscar Piastri later in the session, but the Ferrari driver’s lap was beaten by Russell’s late 1m42.514s effort.

Russell, whose running on Friday had been interrupted by a series of power unit grumbles, reported that his Mercedes powertrain sounded strange through the corners, and also struggled with the handling balance throughout much of the Saturday practice session.

But after moving ahead of Leclerc, Russell’s lap managed to resist the Monegasque’s follow-up 1m42.527s effort to lead the way heading into qualifying.

Early on, there were little more than a series of installation laps at the start of the session, with no flying laps completed in the opening 10 minutes as a few light drops of rain were in the air. 

The session then looked to get into its stride but, as Lando Norris had prepared to begin a lap, the session came to a halt as Esteban Ocon’s Alpine stopped on track just before the 15-minute mark.

This prompted a delay and, once the Alpine was cleared, the session resumed 10 minutes later. With the early laps among the 1m45s, the times were slower compared to Friday’s FP2 session – on fresh soft tyres, Piastri set the benchmark with a 1m45.476.

Max Verstappen found a quarter of a second to move up top spot, but was succeeded by Alex Albon who immediately found a 1m44.371s to get on the pace off the bat.

Leclerc was tracking ahead of Albon during his second attempt, going almost 0.7s up in the opening sector and finding even more time in the second sector. 

This effort was nipped in the bud by another red flag – Oliver Bearman went too deep into Turn 1 and attempted to bail out, but didn’t do so quick enough and knocked his left-front wheel against the Tecpro barrier.

A six-minute recovery operation ensured the session could resume with just over 20 minutes on the clock, allowing Norris to set a 1m44.226s to shuffle to the top of the order.

Albon returned the favour, setting a purple middle sector and gathering a tow from Russell to go fastest for all of about five seconds, as Leclerc put in the lap he’d expected prior to Bearman’s shunt to set a…