Mercedes duo flies in final practice session in Canada

Dry weather and regular programming were a welcomed relief for the entire grid in Montreal, seeing the Mercedes duo topping the final hour of practice ahead of qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Making up for Friday’s muddled order, Red Bull was overly eager to begin the final hour of practice on the front foot.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit headed the queue of drivers in the pitlane, with Max Verstappen instantaneously testing his adjusted RB20 following an ERS failure in FP2.

His dry running on the medium tyre was short-lived, however, after Zhou Guanyu prompted his second Red Flag interruption of the weekend. 

The Chinese racer found his car in the barriers at Turn 2, the result of a strange spin and lockup.

The delay was only momentary, with the grid soon putting their visors down once again, maximising on the rare glimpse of sun peaking through in Montreal.

There was a clear divide in FP3 programs, with the teams splitting tactics between long runs and short runs ahead of qualifying.

Daniel Ricciardo was just one driver focusing on pace over durability, with his RB Team Principal Laurent Mekies confirming the team’s reasoning behind the Australian’s top-three fastest time.

FP3 was also a great demonstration of how the differing compounds performed around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with the soft tyre being the obviously quicker choice, followed by the hard compound and then the mediums. 

Once all initial banker laps had been set, however, it was Verstappen’s yellow-marked benchmark of a 1:14.983s that held its own.

That lap was soon replaced by Fernando Alonso’s efforts on the hard compound, with the veteran setting purple sector after purple sector to skyrocket into P1.

Just as was the case in FP2, Lance Stroll too wasn’t far behind his teammate, momentarily recording the third-fastest time as the only other hard tyre runner.

Braking into the penultimate corner proved difficult for the likes of Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon, with both drivers echoing complaints to their teams.

Despite this, the soft tyre rewarded Leclerc with a temporary fastest time before Lewis Hamilton lit up the timing sheets.

The Mercedes driver set a new time to beat, a 1:13.464s with just over 20 minutes remaining.

The seven-time world champion bested the Ferrari driver’s time by more than a tenth of a second, with Lando Norris’ comparable lap edging ever-so-close to Hamilton’s lead.

With 15 minutes remaining, George Russell brought the fight to his teammate, demoting Hamilton by two-tenths.

An aggressive trip across the kerb at Turn 14 misaligned Albon’s Williams, resulting in contact with the ‘Wall of Champions’.

Albon trundled back to the pitlane, commandeering a clearly unsettled FW46. 

Those who were yet to test out the red-marked compound did so in the final 10 minutes of FP3, with Aston Martin and Red Bull shuffling the order at the head of the timing sheets.

Despite his induction to the soft tyre, Verstappen still wasn’t able to outdo Ricciardo’s solid lap time in P3, waiting until the final five minutes to do so. 

Having posed such an issue in FP2, traffic, although quieting down, was still an issue for drivers.

Carlos Sainz was held up by Pierre Gasly on one of his closing laps, with Logan Sargeant forced to avoid a major incident on the run to Turn 13. 

At the chequered flag, the Mercedes duo, split by Verstappen, remained at the top of the order.

Hamilton’s experience proved vital over his teammate with the #44’s FP3 benchmark being a 1:12.549s, four-tenths ahead of Russell.

The final order in FP3 still leaves much to the imagination ahead of qualifying, with pole position still anyone’s for the taking in Montreal.

Qualifying kicks off at 6:00 AM (AEST).

2024 Canadian Grand Prix Schedule:

Saturday June 8th:

FP1: 3:30 – 4:30

FP2: 7:00 – 8:00

Sunday June 9th:

FP3: 2:30 – 3:30

Qualifying: 6:00 – 7:00

Monday June 10th:

Race: 4:00

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