This session has finished. No further updates will be posted.
That concludes our coverage of the only practice session this weekend. Read our report here. Sprint race qualifying is coming up next in just under three hours’ time.
Leclerc was unable to practice his run into the pit lane at the end of the session: “Some people are sleeping. I couldn’t practice pit entry, they weren’t pushing.”
Norris takes the fastest first sector time off Albon and goes quickest of all, 1’10.610, the best part of two-tenths of a second up on Russell. Bearman an impressive third for Haas.
Hamilton, 15th, is the only driver yet to run the softs. Verstappen does a run and takes that place off him.
Almost everyone on softs now including Perez, who loses a lot of time in the middle of the lap and is only 16th after that run, a second off the pace.
A more competitive time from Norris, four-hundredths off Russell, puts him third, Bearman between them. Leclerc improves to sixth.
Lawson takes fifth, Piastri a low-key sixth for McLaren after three personal best sectors. Norris lapping now.
Leclerc reports “really poor grip in the first three corners.”
Alexander Albon goes quickest on the first sector on a set of softs, two-tenths quicker than Sainz. Bearman goes second with a 1’10.805, Albon slots in a tenth of a second behind him and Sainz only manages fourth.
Franco Colapinto underlines the extra pace available on softs as the track cleans up with a 1’11.619 for second place. The Ferraris out on softs now, Piastri too.
McLaren haven’t figured in this session so far, both drivers well outside of the top 10.
Russell switches to the softs and makes a significant improvement, going fastest by almost a second with a lap of 1’10.791. He reports “weird bouncing through turn nine [Pinheirinho].”
Pierre Gasly is an exception, going up to sixth place on his mediums, three-tenths of a second off Verstappen.
The tyres are clearly taking a hammering, few improvements of note for a while now. Hamilton had a scruffy lap and a brief hold-up behind Norris.
Verstappen continues to head the times but he now has both Mercedes within a tenth of a second of him, Lewis Hamilton second, 0.042s off the Red Bull. “Ride quality is still bad,” Hamilton reports.
Liam Lawson goes up to fifth with a 1’12.304 on softs. Another new track for him to learn this weekend.
The FIA has now confirmed Red Bull have fitted a sixth different engine to Verstappen’s car, which…
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