Piastri ominously quick in final Spanish GP practice

Oscar Piastri laid down the gauntlet ahead of qualifying with a dominant single-lap performance in the final practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Piastri set the fastest time of the weekend so far with a lap clocking in at 1m12.387s, setting purple times in all three sectors, to easily take top spot. Teammate Lando Norris was second but 0.526s off the pace, while Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was the best non-McLaren driver of the hour and a whopping 0.743s adrift.

At least Norris, however, left time on the table after his first attempt at a qualifying simulation lap at the end of the session was scuppered by a rare incident of porpoising through the 160mph Turn 9 that leads onto the back straight.

The Briton had just set the quickest time in the first sector – to be later eclipsed by his teammate – when his car suddenly bounced as he rounded the apex at the rapid right-hander. It sent him into the escape road, from where he returned immediately to pit lane. The team adjusted his rear ride height and sent him out for another attempt, which left him more than half a second adrift of his teammate.

Leclerc and George Russell were very closely matched, the Ferrari leading the Mercedes by just 0.009s in competition to be best of the rest behind the dominant McLaren drivers.

After having lauded one of Red Bull Racing’s best Fridays of the season, Max Verstappen slumped to a demoralizing 0.988s off the pace in fifth. A second attempt on used rubber saw him a further 0.3s off the pace – which, even assuming the soft compound was losing half a second per flying lap on a day the track temperature was hovering at around 120 degrees F, would put him only with Leclerc and Russell and well behind the McLaren drivers.

Isack Hadjar impressed by lapping just 0.007s slower than Verstappen and splitting Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli from the rest of the front-running group.

Fernando Alonso was eighth ahead of Lewis Hamilton in ninth, the Ferrari driver 1.14s off the pace and 0.397s behind teammate Leclerc, but worse than the gap is that the Briton ended the session with a gearbox problem that left him unable to downshift on his way back to pit lane.

Liam Lawson completed the top 10 ahead of Sauber teammates Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg.

Carlos Sainz was the sole representative Williams runner, ending 13th after teammate Alex Albon completed just five laps before pitting with an undisclosed issue that left him 19th in the order.

Yuki Tsunoda appeared to have found no solution to his sliding problems from Friday on his way to 14th and 1.5s off the pace while retaining his half-second deficit to teammate Verstappen.

Lance Stroll was 15th ahead of Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto, the Argentine hauling himself off the bottom of the time sheet for the first time this weekend.

Esteban Ocon was the best-placed Haas driver on a difficult day for the American team, which is bracing for a Q1 elimination. Ocon was 18th ahead of Oliver Bearman in 20th, with only the struck-out Albon splitting them.