FP3: Alonso tops wet final practice session

Alpine’s Fernando Alonso beat Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel to top the timesheets in the wet final practice for the Canadian Grand Prix. Charles Leclerc did not set a timed lap after it became obvious that he would start tomorrow’s Montreal race from the back of the grid.

The third and final practice session took part on a damp track with the rain continuing to fall during the 60-minute session. With qualifying expected to take part in similar conditions, the majority of the field completed surprisingly high mileages in contrast to other wet sessions which usually see drivers refuse to rack up many laps.

Pirelli’s extreme weather option was the preferred choice at the start of the session due to the amount of water on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel led the session at the start, but Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz quickly took over the lead when the Spaniard joined the action. His early benchmark kept the Madrid-born driver on the top of the leaderboard for a long period of time, but he lost the lead when drivers started to use the intermediate tyres.

In the end, Fernando Alonso set the best lap time of the session, pipping AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Vettel, who has been impressive both on dry and wet track. Alpine’s French driver Esteban Ocon struggled for pace in the early part of the session, but came alive on the intermediate tyres and took fourth.

McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris finished P5 and P6 with their late laps. Mercedes had a contrasting session once again with George Russell taming his W13 much better than his team mate Lewis Hamilton. The young Briton finished the 60-minute running in P7 with his seven-time world champion team mate languishing down in 15th position.

Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen spent the majority of the session in the garage, leaving their running to the final 10 minutes. The Dutchman was unbeatably quick yesterday on the dry track, but found it difficult to keep his RB18 on the tight Montreal semi-street circuit in wet conditions. The Mexican took eighth, narrowly beating his team mate.

Carlos Sainz did not push on the intermediate tyres and finished down in P10 following his impressive speed at the beginning of the session. His team mate Charles Leclerc only racked up a total of three laps, refusing to complete a timed lap as he would start the Canadian Grand Prix from the back of the field after Ferrari changed almost every part of his power unit for Saturday.

Yuki Tsunoda, who will start the Montreal race alongside Leclerc from the last row was the most diligent driver by notching up a total of 27 laps as he wanted to improve his skills on a wet surface.