Hamilton leads Saturday training in Montreal

Partly cloudy. Dry. Air +21C, highway +35C

Unlike Friday, the third training session, which took place on Saturday morning (local time of course) at the Montreal circuit, was accompanied by normal summer weather. Although there were some suspicious clouds gathering at the edges of the horizon, the sun occasionally shone across the circuit, and quite logically no one wasted time, and almost immediately most of the cars entered the track.

Admittedly, Guanyu Zhui immediately complained about the brakes and Max Verstappen about the steering. He also did this after he could no longer fit into the final chicane at the end of the first fast lap and cut off the side of the road.

“The controls have been acting strange all weekend!” – said the three-time world champion.

Not even six minutes had passed since the start of the session when it was interrupted by red flags and the Chinese Sauber driver once again found himself to blame for the incident. Again, because yesterday it was his fault that the first training had to be interrupted with red flags.

This time, Guanyu’s car spun at the exit of the first corner, and the rear end got stuck in the bump as early as the second corner. Zhou began apologizing on the radio that the car was “behaving very strangely, the rear wheels were constantly blocked.”

Soon the Sauber C44 stuck on the side of the road was towed away and Zhou returned to the pits on foot as the pit lane exit was very close.

Training resumed and Verstappen immediately moved up to first place, setting a lap of 1:15.495.

Charles Leclerc complained on the radio that the rear brakes were overheating, but the engineer assured him that everything was fine, it was just the indicator that gave a false signal.

Verstappen improved noticeably and went further than a minute and 15 seconds – 1:14.983.

Alex Albon failed to hold the car in Turn 9, after which he complained about the ineffective operation of the brakes.

Alonso drove one lap faster than the three-time world champion: 1:14.870, although it was clear that the speed would increase. For example, a year ago, Lewis Hamilton was the fastest in the second training session on Friday with a result that exceeded Fernando’s time by more than a second.

Sergio Perez was interrupted on the track by one of the Haas drivers – apparently Nico Hulkenberg, and the Mexican used less than parliamentary comments about him. Sergio continued to work on the track, after which he stated that the grip over the entire length of the lap left much to be desired.

Oscar Piastri cut the last chicane – this indicated that the racers simply “shot” to the track, which in any case was quite difficult, and this year the asphalt surface was also completely replaced, and after yesterday’s practice, which took place in constantly changing weather conditions, it was impossible to really assess the grip level.

Alonso added another – 1:14.445, and Daniel Ricciardo moved up to second with a result not much worse: 1:14.780. At the same time, his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, was still seventh and complained to the team that the rear of the car was slipping a lot in corners.

At the start of the second half of the session, the minutes were led by Logan Sargent! The American Williams driver, whose ‘shares’ in Formula 1 have been extremely low lately, managed to complete a lap 0.090 seconds faster than Alonso. Naturally he did this on soft tyres, while the Spaniard completed his lap on Medium.

However, Sargent did not remain at the top of the protocol for long; his time was surpassed by George Russell, who also got soft tires: 1:14.279.

The speeds continued to increase and the first to cross the line of 1 minute and 14 seconds was Alex Albon, Sargent’s teammate, but he in turn was immediately pushed aside by first Charles Leclerc and then Lewis Hamilton. The future teammate of the Monegasque is spending his last season at Mercedes and has now set a lap of 1:14.464.

Lando Norris, who had previously kept a low profile, moved up to second place – apparently having worked on his race pace over the previous 18 laps, but now he switched to soft tires and began preparing for qualifying. Incidentally, Verstappen was outside the top ten at this stage of the session and continued to complain to the team on the radio that he was not happy with the car’s behaviour.

There were 15 minutes left in practice and almost all drivers returned to the pits to prepare for the final set of laps.

After receiving a fresh set of soft tires, Russell was one of the first to return to the track and immediately set the best time: 1:13.274.

On the next lap, Alex Albon overdid it at the exit of the last chicane, the car started to leave the stretch and hit the “Wall of Champions” with its right rear wheel. It was clear that this had not gone without a trace and Alex slowly returned to the pits, where the team would have to repair the right rear suspension of his Williams.

At the end of the session everyone took to the track except him and Zhou, who damaged the car at the start of practice, and Hamilton returned to first place with a result of 1:12.549. By the way, he completed the lap more than seven-tenths faster than his partner – isn’t this confirmation that the best racers wouldn’t surprise anyone with their speeds yet.

Max Verstappen showed the second time, but it was also more than six-tenths worse than Hamilton’s time.

A curious episode took place between Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly: ​​the Alpine driver accidentally interfered with the Spaniard and even managed to scold him on the radio. But Pierre realized his mistake, and when their cars overtook at the hairpin bend, he showed Carlos that he was guilty with a wave of his hand.

By the way, at that time Sainz was only on the 18th line of the protocol and his partner on the 10th.

“We are extremely slow!” – this was Charles’ comment broadcast on the radio. Admittedly, Carlos rose to 12th place in the next round, but this result is also unconvincing. It seems the Ferrari drivers were in a bad mood and didn’t even practice the starting procedure. But perhaps this wasn’t part of the Scuderia’s plans at all.

In his last fastest lap, Max Verstappen also left his mark on the ‘Wall of Champions’: the contact of the right rear wheel with the barrier was quite noticeable. Considering he is already a three-time world champion, as well as the leader of the individual competition, this is even symbolic in its own way. Besides, this is just training.

Results of the third session