Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc beat the Mercedes duo of Formula 1 championship leader Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in final practice ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix.
Leclerc, who also topped the timesheet in a chaotic second practice session on Friday, initially wrestled with Bottas for the fastest time on Saturday morning.
On his first low fuel soft tyre run, Bottas overhauled Leclerc’s previous best effort to set a new benchmark that was 0.054s clear of the Ferrari driver at the top of the times.
But Leclerc responded instantly, recording a rapid sector two time to topple Bottas by 0.101s.
Improving his middle sector on his second run, Leclerc further lowered his pace to dip into the 1m03s, with an unassailable 1m03.987s.
After a scruffy start to the session, running wide and off track at Turn 3 on his first soft tyre effort before hopping over the kerb at Turn 1 on his second lap, Hamilton eventually slotted in ahead of Bottas.
Prior to Leclerc’s final improvement, Hamilton managed to close to within a hundredth of the lead Ferrari but ended up 0.143s adrift.
Bottas’ best effort was enough to seal third spot, edging Leclerc’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel lost time in the final sector on his fastest lap and was not able to match Leclerc at any point during the qualifying simulation runs.
Max Verstappen was fifth for Red Bull, while Pierre Gasly faced powerunit software issues on the other side of the garage which cost him track time early in the session. Gasly ended up over half a second off of Verstappen’s pace in seventh.
Gasly was beaten to sixth by Lando Norris, who teamed up with Carlos Sainz Jr during the session as the McLaren duo practised a tow.
Sainz, who ended the session in eighth, enters qualifying with a guarantee of starting at the back of the grid on account of fresh powerunit grid penalties.
Antonio Giovinazzi and Daniil Kvyat rounded out the top 10 for Alfa Romeo and Toro Rosso
Kvyat was ahead of his team-mate Alexander Albon who, like Sainz, is guaranteed to start at the back of the grid having opted for a fresh Honda powerunit this weekend.
Both Renault’s ended up outside the top 10 for the second consecutive session, with Nico Hulkenberg 12th and Daniel Ricciardo in an anonymous 17th.
