The track and the atmosphere are on fire in Catalunya. TO Barcelona FP3 closes with a tight fight between Charles Leclerc e Max Verstappen. On the fast lap the Ferrari who also archives this third and final test session in the lead with the world leader Charles Leclerc who closes in 1:19.772. Verstappen, however, the narrow brand. The two are separated by only 72 thousandths. Third Russell, which is confirmed in great shape with the Mercedes. Work a little harder Hamilton who in the final places immediately behind his teammate. The Silver Arrows have brought a series of updates to Spain and seem to have found a solution to eradicate the problem of pouring, also finding a little more competitiveness on the straights.
Encouraging signals from Ferrari
The track continues to get rubbery, and this favors those who have had more difficulty managing the tyreslike Ferrari. The FP3 however they give us a rather relative view given the time at which they took place. However, this is the most important session as compared to yesterday, the teams were able to test the final set up. Gathering negative data at this point in the weekend would be a big problem. But at home Ferrari today, there is a completely different music compared to yesterday. The team worked hard to find the ideal set up for the qualifications which will start at 16:00. The problems related to the race pace seem to be water under the bridge. Both pilots didn't show great difficulties and completed the expected work. Is Leclerc is Sainz they completed 23 laps apiece. Verstappen, who took to the track after 20 minutes only 12, while Perez 19. The GPS data also suggest that both Red Bull drivers pushed less on the engine front than Mercedes and Red Bull.
Work in Sainz's box
It worked mostly on the single-seater of Sainz. On Friday evening, the Scuderia di Maranello broke the first curfew of the two granted by the regulations, to work on the number 55 car. The team decided to replace the chassis on the Spaniard's F1-75, which crashed in the last free practice session in Miami two weeks ago. A replacement that was due - according to what was communicated by the team - to a problem with the fuel system. Sainz finished in fifth position in FP3, about 3 tenths behind his teammate. “We would have wasted too much time trying to find out exactly where the problem was“, revealed the Ferrari team boss Mattia binotto.
The rest of the ranking
Curfew also broken in McLaren, where the mechanics worked for a long time to recover the damage on the car Lando Norris after yesterday's gravel ride in FP2. The British driver finished the third session in seventh position, behind Sainz and Perez, +6 tenths behind Charles Leclerc. Kevin Magnussen, after yesterday's day, quite anonymous, brings instead the Haas in eighth position. They close the top 10 Bottas e Or with – ahead of their respective teammates. The top 10 are all pretty close. The gap with Leclerc in fact reaches a maximum of +1.110.
Daniel Ricciardo, on the other hand, is placed in P11, half a second behind his teammate, while Sebastian Vettel, 12th, confirmed what he saw yesterday. With this new single-seater definitely has another step compared to his teammate and compared to the previous weekends. It disappoints at the moment Alonso, with Alpine, only 13th.
Problems for Gasly and Schumacher
All the teams in FP3 tried to get on track as soon as possible to finish the work in view of qualifying. Very complicated session for Schumacher e gasly. The French pilot ofAlpha Tauri already after just one lap he experienced a technical problem with the heat shield. In the garage, the mechanics are trying to understand the extent of the problem and figure out the timing to fix it in time for qualifying.
Things are no better for Mick Schumacher who was forced to return due to a problem with the right rear brakes which caught fire as happened in Bahrain to Latifi, Albon in Imola and Verstappen in Miami. This inconvenience could cost him much more than expected and even in this case, fixing the situation will require a race against time.
