Lando Norris led the last practice session of the Italian Grand Prix for Charles Leclerc, with the McLaren and Ferrari controllers separated by less than 0.1s for the second session successively.
Norris shot in the first place with his first point on soft tires and used the benchmark on 1m19,331s. In the meantime, Leclerc had a restless first run on softs. He baptized his left-left wheel on the gravel that left the second Lesmo bend and had to save a huge snap, and although he went on with the round, there was clear time on the table. A second attempt to use used softs restored him to the second place he held in FP2, reducing the shortage from Friday from 0.083 to only 0.021s.
Like on Friday, the Ferrari already made its time through the straight pieces. Leclerc was more than 0.3s faster than Norris in the first sector, but the British clawed it all back and fractionally more because of the few high-speed corners of the track to squeeze the top spot at the end of the hour.
In his first round, Norris was followed on the road on the road by teammate Oscar Piastri, whose first round brought him 0.247s further back. The majority of the difference was due to the two lesmo corners in the middle sector, where Norris has been the faster McLaren all weekend.
Both drivers started a second tour on used softs. Piastri cut his shortage back to 0.165s, but Norris could not improve – although even his slower round was faster than Piastri’s new best, albeit with only 0.004s.
Max Verstappen initially distributed the McLaren drivers after the first runs before Piaastri’s improvements bump him down again. The Dutchman started at the end of the hour at the end of the hour at the end of the hour and improved, but not through enough to overhaul Piatri, with only 0.002s chased the Australian.
George Russell completed the top five in Mercedes’s most convincing version of the weekend to date. The Mercedes driver was 0.184s slower than Norris, but was faster than most of the rest of the front runners in the last sector.
Gabriel Bortoleto was an excellent sixth for Sauber, with the Ferrari enmined car that corresponds to the Ferrari Works team for speed through the straight and time in the opening sector. He was 0.227s from the top position and for Lewis Hamilton, who faded with his second round in his Scuderia car.
The Brit led Leclerc after his first round, but could not keep up with the pace. He ended the session 0.267s of the pace after he rods his team that he “needs more juice … some more speed.”
Isack Hadjar completed a top eight spread over only 0.272s in a strong show for racing bulls, although the Frenchman will see the stewards after the session for running the rog of the Roggia Chicane and not at the designated part of the exit.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli recovered from missing almost all FP2 with a workman -like final practice session that delivered him a respectable ninth and 0.365s from the pace – and only 0.181s slower than Russell.
Alex Albon became 10th for Williams and 0.389s from the Norris benchmark in a comedown by Williams’s Friday optimism, the British team that struggled on Saturday to illuminate the tires in the same way as 24 hours earlier.
Nico Hulkenberg was 11th for Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz and Franco Colapinto.
Yuki Tsunoda was 15th and 0.728s of the pace for Liam Lawson, who suspected that he had damaged the left side of his floor wide over some curbs and on the gravel of the Roggia Chicane.
Oliver Bearman was 17th for Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll and Esteban Ocon at the bottom of the Order, the latter Frenchman who sustained the anger of Verstappen because he raced him early in the first Chicane in the first Chicane.
Result
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