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Lewis Hamilton topped the final practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix, sending a signal intent ahead of qualifying this afternoon, the reigning Formula 1 World Champion was half a second faster than the next best in the hour session.
After a Friday in Barcelona that revealed little, FP3 was expected to provide a better indication of what to expect for qualifying.
Hamilton’s best lap was near perfect and broke the timing beam at 1:16.568, seven tenths faster than the best effort yesterday and a half second up on Charles Leclerc in the fastest Ferrari who, in turn, was a couple of hundredths up on Championship leader Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes.
Fourth fastest was Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel – less than a tenth separated the trio from second to fourth. Close between them but far off Hamilton’s best suggesting the Briton has raised the bar as the campaign hits Europe.
Well up the order again and apparently narrowing the gap to the Big Two were the Haas pair with Romain Grosjean in fifth, six tenths off the prime time and three tenths up on teammate Kevin Magnussen in sixth.
The American team have unlocked much-needed performance from this latest spec-package which reportedly has does not have the Ferrari engine upgrade that the Reds have rolled out for this weekend..
Report in progress…
