FP3: Piastri leads dominant McLaren one-two in distracted final practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Emilia Romagna, Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari

Oscar Piastri headed a dominant McLaren one-two in the final and third practice at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finishing third and fourth respectively. F1Technical’s Balazs Szabo reports from Imola.

The final one-hour practice was distracted on two occasions, hindering drivers in their final preparations for the crucial qualifying session.

Thr first incident saw Fernando Alonso lose his Aston Martin in the second Rivazza corner. The Spaniard completed his first stint on Pirelli’s hard tyres, and his car looked nervous in slow corners all through the session.

Watching his incident at Rivazza uno, Alonso already had a moment at the exit of first Rivazza turn before carrying too much speed into the next turn. As a result, he lost the back of his upgraded AMR24, and was unable to save the car.

The second incident was triggered by Sergio Perez, who lost his Red Bull into the Gresini chicane, and crashed into the wall with the incident causing damage to the front wing of his RB20.

Perez made his mistakes on his qualifying simulation lap just minutes from the end, but the track marshals were quick, so the session could be restarted with just two minutes left on the clock.

In the end, McLaren drivers were the only ones from the leading racers to complete a qualifying simulation. Confirming McLaren’s impressive speed around the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Oscar Piastri ended up fastest with a 1m15.529s which has been the quickest lap of the weekend so far.

His team-mate Lando Norris took second, three tenths of a second adrift. Ferrari drivers Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished in P3 and P4 respectively, albeit they set their best times earlier in the session as their final soft-compound run was distracted by heavy traffic on their preparation lap.

Following his issues on Friday, Verstappen looked much comfortable in his RB20, albeit he only ended up sixth fastest as he was also robbed of his final qualifying simulation due to traffic on his warm-up lap.