Max Verstappen Tops Rain Disrupted Final Practice, Sargeant Crashes

Max Verstappen led the final practice session in Spain ahead of Sergio Pérez and Lewis Hamilton, who showed much-needed improvement for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

Under the looming threat of rain, all twenty drivers took to the track, eager to make the most of the dry conditions. Verstappen swiftly emerged as the frontrunner, leading Pérez and Hamilton.

However, the session was abruptly stopped when Williams Racing rookie Logan Sargeant lost control of his car, sliding through the gravel and lightly colliding with the barrier at the final corner, luckily for the American the damage on the car looked minimal.

After the session resumed, raindrops started to fall, meaning all drivers remained in their garages waiting for the conditions to get better. That didn’t happen though and Lando Norris was the first to venture out on intermediate tyres, followed later by Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc for Scuderia Ferrari.

The laps times didn’t really represent who had pace due to the little running in the dry and with the track becoming too wet for any improvements in lap times, Verstappen’s early time of 1m 13.664s remained the fastest, with Pérez trailing by a mere 0.250s. Hamilton held onto third place, a little over four-tenths behind Verstappen, showcasing notable progress for the Mercedes team.

The Spanish favourites Sainz and Fernando Alonso finished in fourth and fifth, much to the delight of the home crowd. George Russell claimed the sixth spot, which he’ll be hoping to improve on in qualifying, while Leclerc finished the session in seventh.

Valtteri Bottas secured the eighth fastest time for Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda from Scuderia AlphaTauri in ninth. Lando Norris rounded out the top 10 for McLaren F1 Team.

Zhou Guanyu looked to have some pace and secured eleventh place with a good lap, while Nyck de Vries continued his good Friday form and finished right behind in twelfth. Lance Stroll, who briefly encountered trouble by running wide and traversing the gravel at Turn 5 in the wet conditions, settled for thirteenth place, which will be largely disappointing with the performance of his teammate so far this weekend.

Nico Hülkenberg, who impressed in free practice two on Friday, was fourteenth fastest, while McLaren rookie driver Oscar Piastri took fifteenth. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly were only sixteenth and eighteenth but both drivers didn’t set their fastest times on soft tyres and were unable to improve due to the rain.

Kevin Magnussen secured seventeenth place for MoneyGram Haas F1 Team. While the Williams duo of Alex Albon and Sargeant once again occupied the bottom positions on the leaderboard, with the British team really lacking pace so far in Spain.

POS	DRIVER	CAR	TIME	GAP	LAPS
1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT	1:13.664		14
2	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT	1:13.914	+0.250s	14
3	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:14.072	+0.408s	9
4	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	1:14.240	+0.576s	20
5	Fernando Alonso	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	1:14.264	+0.600s	14
6	George Russell	MERCEDES	1:14.278	+0.614s	16
7	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	1:14.353	+0.689s	18
8	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:14.360	+0.696s	15
9	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT	1:14.659	+0.995s	16
10	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:14.681	+1.017s	20
11	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:14.681	+1.017s	15
12	Nyck De Vries	ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT	1:14.693	+1.029s	18
13	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	1:14.756	+1.092s	14
14	Nico Hulkenberg	HAAS FERRARI	1:14.988	+1.324s	12
15	Oscar Piastri	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:15.105	+1.441s	17
16	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	1:15.266	+1.602s	15
17	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	1:15.534	+1.870s	12
18	Pierre Gasly	ALPINE RENAULT	1:15.841	+2.177s	14
19	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:15.851	+2.187s	13
20	Logan Sargeant	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:16.529	+2.865s	5