Perez leads Leclerc in third Miami Grand Prix practice
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez write-up Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to the top spot in a sweltering final practice superiority of qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix.
The Mexican set his fastest lap with less than five minutes on the clock, with a rapid final sector in particular taking him to a weightier time of 1m30.304s, bettering Leclerc’s weightier by just 0.194s.
Leclerc struggled with his first flying lap on softs when the track was at its hottest, the soft Pirelli rubber squirming as the tile topped out at virtually 130 degrees F, but a late flier as conditions cooled by scrutinizingly 15 degrees F unlocked increasingly time, popping him into second.
Max Verstappen was third but was set to take top spot with his final lap when he clattered the inside prorogue at Turn 14 and lost tenancy of his Red Bull. Only a nonflexible pump of the brakes saved the Dutchman from the wall, grinding the car to a halt awkwardly in the middle of the track. He was worldly-wise to return to pit lane unscathed and with the third-best time.
It completed a decent turnaround from his difficult Friday on which he completed just five flying laps thanks to a series of technical problems.
But Mercedes’s pace seemed to disappear without a strong opening day. Without topping FP2, George Russell languished in 17th and 1.6s off the pace. Lewis Hamilton fared only marginally largest in 15th and 1.5s adrift.
The team’s performance runs came older in the hour, when the track was hotter and less competitive, and the car seemed to be visibly struggling to pericope grip over a series of scrappy laps. The W13 was moreover noticeably wavy increasingly significantly than it had been on Friday.
In the sparsity of the Silver Arrows it was Fernando Alonso who slipped into fourth at 0.732s off the pace, vibration Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel by 0.013s and a strong Mick Schumacher, who took his Haas car to within just 0.001s remoter adrift.
Carlos Sainz completed a much-needed wipe hour with his Ferrari without his Friday crash to finish seventh on the time sheet and with the equal second most laps of the session, making up for time lost in FP2 yesterday.
Kevin Magnussen set his flying lap late but couldn’t get closer than 0.2s overdue teammate Schumacher for eighth. Alex Albon followed in ninth for Williams, with Lando Norris completing the top 10 for McLaren. Yuki Tsunoda followed in 11th superiority of Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo in the second McLaren.
Valtteri Bottas was 14th, his 26 laps the most of any suburbanite of the session without missing most of Friday thanks to a crash in FP1. His car was equipped with flipside turbocharger and MGU-H as part of the repairs.
Hamilton followed in 15th superiority of Pierre Gasly and Russell, with Zhou Guanyu and Nicholas Latifi propping up the time sheet.
Esteban Ocon didn’t set a lap time, having crashed heavily just 15 minutes into the session at Turn 14.
The Frenchman lost tenancy of the rear of his Alpine exiting Turn 13. The car swapped ends and slammed right-side-first into the outside wall and slid up to Turn 14, coming to rest in scrutinizingly exactly the same spot as Sainz’s car yesterday afternoon. The session was suspended for virtually 12 minutes.
Ocon was cleared of injury at the medical center; the team will now race to repair the car surpassing qualifying just two hours without the end of the session.
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