George Russell lays down Barcelona marker as Kimi Antonelli fumes at traffic

George Russell heads into qualifying for the Barcelona Grand Prix as the driver to beat, having set the pace in FP3 ahead of Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc.

However, championship leader Kimi Antonelli didn’t complete a qualifying sim lap as he came up behind traffic in the form of Lance Stroll and then “four cars”.

George Russell fastest in Barcelona FP3 ahead of qualifying

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The final practice session before qualifying began in sweltering conditions at Barcelona, with tyre degradation expected to play a crucial role.

Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez were the only drivers out on track in the opening 10 minutes, the teammates setting lap times before pitting and immediately returning to the track. They’d each covered six laps before they were joined by Nico Hulkenberg. The Audi driver went P1 with a 1:18.2.

20 minutes into the session, the trio were finally joined by the rest of the field bar Red Bull, Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton.

Friday’s pace-setter Lando Norris hit the front with a 1:16.6, putting him 0.076s up on Charles Leclerc. McLaren broke curfew on Friday night to work on Norris and Oscar Piastri’s MCL40s, replacing “permissible key components to help improve the robustness of the installation and integration of the power unit” on both cars.

All 22 drivers had completed a timed lap before the midway point of the hour-long session, with George Russell fastest with a 1:16.2, two and a half tenths faster than his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli.

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Five laps into his FP3 programme, a dark band had already opened up on Leclerc’s tyres.

Red flag!

Valtteri Bottas’s practice ended after 14 laps as he went sliding off the track and into the gravel. He had a snap out of Turn 9 and backed off before sliding his Cadillac into the gravel at Turn 10 to stop the car.

“I lost my brake pedal, it’s gone,” Bottas reported. “Like the pedal is gone. I got very lucky there.”

It wasn’t Cadillac’s first brake issue of the season with the team struggling in Monaco where both Bottas and Sergio Perez were hampered by brake fires.

Back underway, Perez asked Cadillac: “What happened to Valtteri? Was it just a mistake or something happened?” He was told that it was “nothing” that would affect him.

Liam Lawson also had problems with “dust coming into my eyes” every time he braked. He was sitting in 11th place, a tenth but four positions behind his Racing Bulls teammate Arvid Lindblad.

Swapping to fresh soft tyres for qualifying simulations in the final 12 minutes, Russell went purple in the first and third sectors to cross the line with a 1:15.6. That was six-tenth faster than his previous best.

Piastri and Norris jumped to second and third, with Hamilton fourth, but Antonelli had yet to put in his flying lap. He came up behind traffic in the form of Lance Stroll. He aborted his second flying lap, telling Mercedes, “OMG mate, it’s unbelievable, unbelievable. I’m going to box.” Antonelli continued to fume about the traffic.

Russell finished the session fastest of all with a 1:15.679, putting him two-tenths ahead of Piastri with Leclerc third fastest.

Barcelona Grand Prix: FP3 times

1 Russell 1:15.679
2 Piastri 1:15.893
3 Leclerc 1:15.922
4 Norris 1:15.925
5 Hamilton 1:16.381
6 Verstappen 1:16.434
7 Antonelli 1:16.500
8 Hadjar 1:16.684
9 Hulkenberg 1:16.961
10 Lindblad 1:17.020

The full result from FP3 at the Barcelona Grand Prix

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