Leclerc leads Albon in final British GP F1 practice

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc led Williams driver Alex Albon in a rain-hit final British Grand Prix Formula 1 practice session at Silverstone.

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Key moments:

> Rain freezes order at halfway point

> Leclerc heads Albon and Alonso

> Verstappen and Perez left without soft-tyre run

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Leclerc – who sat out the entirety of Friday’s second practice due to an electrical issue – set the fastest time of the weekend so far, a 1m27.419s, on his initial run on softs, and looked on course to improve after swapping to a new set when rain arrived, effectively freezing the order in the standings and setting up a second half-hour of primarily intermediate-tyre running.

Remarkably, as his peers peeled into the pits en masse, the Monegasque elected to stay out on track for an extra lap of the slicks-on-wet experience – something that Lando Norris also tried later in the session as the rain eased off before picking up again.

Both Leclerc and Norris got through those without incident, though Leclerc did subsequently spin on inters in the final moments of the session.

Rain is falling and everyone returns to the pits

Everyone, that is, but Charles Leclerc who's still out there maximising his track time! 💪#BritishGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/Gkf8WdsXz3

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 8, 2023

The rain kicked off just short of the halfway point, but several teams had managed to pull off a last-gasp qualifying simulation on softs in anticipation – with Williams the quickest of those as Albon lapped just under two tenths off Leclerc.

Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Pierre Gasly (Alpine) took advantage, too, to book their spots in the top four.

Lewis Hamilton was second-fastest after the opening runs, as Mercedes looked to have thoroughly shrugged off its disappointing single-lap pace from Friday, and that initial time was still good enough for fifth in the end, with team-mate George Russell in ninth.

It left Hamilton 0.016 seconds clear of Carlos Sainz, who was effectively matching Ferrari team-mate Leclerc’s pace on softs but didn’t get that final flyer in.

Logan Sargeant was over half a second down on Williams team-mate Albon on his own soft-tyre attempt but still placed seventh.

Championship leader Max Verstappen settled for eighth, six places up on Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez. But the RB19s were medium-shod on their first stints and ran out of time to do a soft run, their radio communications suggesting they were caught out by the sooner-than-expected arrival of ran.

Yuki Tsunoda completed the top 10 for AlphaTauri, but this too was down to a last-second soft-tyre improvement.

🟢 FP3 GREEN LIGHT 🟢

The final hour of practice before qualifying 👉

Norris has pulled up at the end of the pit lane, his McLaren team asking him to stop the car ✋#BritishGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/EINdFKDTWw

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 8, 2023

McLaren is under investigation after having sent Norris out of the pits with equipment still attached to his MCL60’s exhaust – and with Norris having seemingly left what officially constitutes the pitlane by the time he was told to stop to have said equipment removed.

Practice 3 Results