Spanish Grand Prix – Max Verstappen was fastest in a Red Flagged and rain-affected final practice where there was only proper running in the opening minutes.
While yesterday the rain did threaten during the Friday practice sessions, it held off but in the build up to FP3 the dark clouds covered the skies as thickly as crowds packed around the track’s viewing spots.
(FP3) Third Practice Results – 2023 Spanish Grand Prix
With rain imminent, and lightning already lighting up the skies, the cars all lined up at the end of the pit lane to get whatever dry times that they could possibly get. The Williams cars were at the head of the queue Logan Sargeant opened the times with a 1:16.529 on the softs.
After five minutes all but the AlphaTauri and Ferraris, who’d sone install laps on hards or mediums before switching to the softs, had set times and it was Max Verstappen at the top of the charts with a 1:13.664, two and a half tenths ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez while the Mercedes cars of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were behind them.
Teams had been predicting rain about ten/fifteen minutes into the session but it wasn’t rain that stopped the dry running but a Red Flag after nine minutes when Sargeant’s Williams got out of shape going through the final corner sending him through the gravel and ended up beached at the barriers.
The practice session went green again with 43 minutes on the clock but all cars remained in their garages as the rain had started. Just after the half hour mark Lando Norris headed out on the intermediates but the rain got a bit heavier as he did, the McLaren racer explored the limits of the track before returning to the pits at the end of the lap.
At the 21 minutes mark the Ferraris ventured out on the inters, after a couple of circulations they were joined by Kevin Magnussen, Esteban Ocon and the McLarens. The other cars, apart from Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, then started to appear with reports coming back that while it was still raining, the track didn’t seem to be too wet.
Alonso joined the fun just inside the final ten minutes and a couple of minutes later Norris was the first to put slicks on as he headed out on the softs just as Lance Stroll went on a bumpy journey through the gravel after going off line onto the damp to avoid a slow car.
Norris started lapping quicker than those on the inters but wasn’t happy overly with his brakes, everyone else copied his lead with the tyres for the final few minutes of the session, and even Hamilton made his first appearance on track since the Red Flag.
Verstappen didn’t see the point in pushing in the still slippery conditions and while some people got close to the dry times of the early part of the session, there weren’t any improvements. Traffic was an issue at the end with multiple cars not getting heads up to get off the racing line for quicker cars behind.
The leaderboard didn’t change after the Red Flag so it was Verstappen on top ahead of Perez and Hamilton. Carlos Sainz was P4 ahead of Alonso and Russell. Charles Leclerc’s 1:14.353 saw him in P7 just ahead of Valtteri Bottas while Yuki Tsunoda was the last driver within a second of Verstappen. Norris and Zhou Guanyu had both set a 1:14.681 but the McLaren racer was the first to do so so he took P10.
