Russell flexes his muscles with P1 in FP3 ahead of Hamilton and Leclerc

The Mercedes man found the stunning pace with under a minute remaining in the final practice session of the weekend to underline his and Mercedes championship credentials with a 1:19.053.

Hamilton and Leclerc showed Ferrari is well in the fight for pole position later in the day with some fine laps throughout a chaotic session that saw two red flags, including one for a huge Kimi Antonelli crash.

Oscar Piastri finished fourth ahead of Isack Hadjar, a tenth ahead of teammate Max Verstappen in his debut weekend for Red Bull.

Antonelli ended the session in seventh before his crash, while 2025 World Champion Lando Norris could only come P8.

Gabriel Bortoleto and Oliver Bearman in the Audi and Haas rounded out the top ten.

Before any F1 action took place on track, a 20-minute delay occurred as a result of barrier repairs after a collision during Formula 3's sprint race.

FP3 got underway for its hour-long duration after those repairs came to an end, with Hamilton setting the early pace of the soft tyres.

However, after Carlos Sainz lost power at the entry of the pit lane, ten more minutes was lost after a virtual safety car turned into a red flag just to get rid of the stalled Williams machine.

Once the sesson got into its rhythm and drivers bolted on the soft tyres, there was a back and fourth battle for the P1 spot.

Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren all held that spot at some stage, with Piastri and Antonelli challenging at the front with some nice pace shown.

Hamilton and Leclerc then traded fastest lap times between the pair of them as Ferrari showed they may be the team to beat before qualifying takes place later in the day.

But it was Leclerc who broke away from that pack first with a fine lap to get into the one-minute-19-seconds range and go three-tenths clear of anyone else with just under 20 minutes remaining.

However, come the end of the session, the Monegasque could not hold on, seeing Russell and Hamilton overtake him before the chequered flag fell, setting up a fantastic qualifying battle.