Charles Leclerc topped ultimate observe on the British Grand Prix after a purple flag prevented Lewis Hamilton from finishing a lap that appeared more likely to put him forward of his Ferrari teammate.
The session was suspended with rather less than 10 minutes remaining resulting from some stray Haas bodywork on the monitor, successfully locking Leclerc into prime spot with a finest time of 1m 25.498s.
The Monegasque headed a good quartet of drivers representing three totally different constructors.
Oscar Piastri recovered strongly from his Friday struggles on the gentle tire to set himself up because the lead McLaren driver, lapping simply 0.068s off Leclerc’s tempo.
Purple Bull Racing’s restoration was much more spectacular, with Max Verstappen third and simply 0.087s slower than the lead Ferrari, although the Dutchman complained of brake bias issues that he described as “like a handbrake”.
Lando Norris accomplished the tight prime 4 at simply 0.108s off the tempo.
Hamilton, nevertheless, appeared set to usurp all 4 of them because the final driver among the many leaders to take a brand new set of softs within the ultimate a part of the hour.
The nine-time British Grand Prix winner set the quickest first sector of the session and a private finest within the center break up to place himself nominally 0.074 seconds forward of Leclerc with one sector remaining.
The time was extra spectacular for the Briton enterprise an additional preparation lap after a mistake via Membership that might have scuppered his first timed run.
Hamilton rejoined the session following the temporary purple flag with the identical set of tires however was prevented once more by one other purple flag, this time for Gabriel Bortoleto shedding management of his automobile via Maggotts.
The Sauber spun backwards via the grass runoff, the place a giant bump appeared to interrupt his suspension, leaving him subsequently stranded within the gravel and forcing the session to finish early.
It left Hamilton in an unrepresentative eleventh for the session and 0.834s down on his teammate.
Yuki Tsunoda had a greater begin to Saturday than he did Friday to complete fifth, albeit he was 0.606s slower than Leclerc and 0.519s slower than teammate Verstappen.
Bearman completed a crashed-out sixth after the Briton misplaced management of his automobile coming into pit lane throughout Bortoleto’s purple flag, writing off his nosecone in opposition to the obstacles.
Alex Albon was seventh for Williams forward of George Russell, who was 0.627s off the tempo however misplaced round 0.2s to a lockup at Village on his quickest lap. The Briton, who’s hopeful of his qualifying possibilities within the cooler overcast situations of Saturday, dedicated the identical mistake on his second try between the purple flags.
Racing Bulls teammates Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson accomplished the highest 10, Lawson after being proven the black and white flag for driving erratically in a run-in with Pierre Gasly.
Hamilton was eleventh forward of Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, all inside one second of Leclerc’s benchmark.
Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg was 1.001s adrift in fifteenth forward of crashed-out teammate Bortoleto.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll had been an underwhelming seventeenth and nineteenth, sandwiching Franco Colapinto in 18th.
Gasly lamented that improved steadiness didn’t translate into higher grip on his technique to twentieth and a couple of.38s off the tempo.
