Alonso leads Gasly in wet final Canadian GP practice

Fernando Alonso beat Pierre Gasly to the fastest time in a soaking wet final practice session ahead of Canadian Grand Prix qualifying.

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Key moments:

> Alonso’s Alpine ends up 0.053s ahead of AlphaTauri of Gasly

> Pacesetters were among first to try inters

> Late spins at Turn 2 for Verstappen, Magnussen

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A change of weather overnight from the sunny conditions experienced for the majority of Friday meant there was an understandably slow start to FP3, with the Haas duo of Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher plus Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu the first to take to the track.

Magnussen was the early pacesetter as drivers got to grips with conditions, though times quickly tumbled as more cars took to the track.

Carlos Sainz was the first driver among 2022’s ‘big four’ – from Ferrari and Red Bull – to attempt a proper time just before the mid-point in the session and duly went fastest with a best time of 1m35.858s.

He was joined at the top of the times by Fernando Alonso, with the pair then usurped by the Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel before all three made the call to switch to intermediates in the final 20 minutes of the session.

That came right at the point where the track was at its tyre crossover, as Alonso was the first of the trio to improve his time while others further down the field continued to find improvements on the full wet compound.

Alonso and former F1 title rival Vettel entered the final portion of FP3 trading top spot, with Alonso ultimately ending up fastest with a best time of 1m33.836s.

That was 0.055s faster than Vettel’s time, though Gasly ended up getting his AlphaTauri between the pair with a late effort on inters that was just 0.002s better than Vettel’s.

The second Alpine of Esteban Ocon was fourth ahead of the McLaren pair of Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris, with George Russell seventh and the best of the wet-shod runners.

Red Bull duo Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen were eighth and ninth – with Verstappen, as well as Magnussen, surviving an off onto the grass at Turn 2 late on.

Now Verstappen is off at Turn 2!

Max manages to avoid the barriers and gets going again as the clock ticks down on FP3 #CanadianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/RIFsr72wDK

— Formula 1 (@F1) June 18, 2022

Carlos Sainz completed the top 10, with Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc – who will start the race from the back of the grid after Ferrari elected to make more changes to his engine – 20th and the only driver not to set a time.

Practice 3 Results