F1: Leclerc Tops Final Practice In Spain – Qualifying Build-Up

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fastest in final practice at the Spanish Grand Prix as it appeared that Mercedes may have finally rejoined the fight at the front of the field.

Leclerc was just 0.072 seconds quicker than his title rival, Max Verstappen of Red Bull.

But the two Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were third and fourth, both within 0.2secs of Leclerc and ahead of his team-mate Carlos Sainz and the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez.

On Friday, Hamilton had declared himself “super-happy” with progress Mercedes had made with developments to their car.

And on Saturday morning, technical director Mike Elliott said the team were “definitely able to run the car much closer to a position where we’d like to run it”.

Mercedes’ inability to run the car as low as they wanted for maximum performance without triggering severe aerodynamic “bouncing” has been their biggest limitation during a difficult start to 2022.

Behind Perez, McLaren’s Lando Norris, also with an upgraded car this weekend, was 0.631 seconds off the pace in seventh, ahead of Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon