George Russell beat Charles Leclerc to the lead in final practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Russell clocked the fastest time in the final sector, 1min 42.514sec, which allowed him to improve his weekend record by almost a second.

Russell’s lap came in the final two minutes of the session, on the soft tyres he had used for five laps, finishing 0.013s ahead of Leclerc.

The decision came despite the Briton complaining that “driving in a straight line under braking is awful” and having concerns about the unusual behaviour of the power unit under braking.

Mercedes made a precautionary change to the power unit in Russell’s car between Friday’s practice sessions.

Lando Norris took the top three places behind Leclerc, 0.223s behind McLaren, making it a total of three different teams in the top three positions.
In his fastest lap he beat his team-mate Oscar Piastri by just 0.012 seconds.

Max Verstappen was fifth for Red Bull, 0.348s behind the leader. The Dutchman climbed to the back of the grid with the help of team-mate Sergio Perez, who helped him overcome problems in the final sector throughout the weekend.

Carlos Sainz was sixth after his final lap was interrupted by Sergio Perez at the super-fast Turn 15. A second attempt on the same tyres saw him move up to sixth, 0.454s off the pace, 0.056s ahead of the Mexican in seventh.

Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto impressed for Williams, finishing eighth and ninth, 0.68 and 0.724 seconds behind the leaders respectively.
Lewis Hamilton finished in an anonymous 10th place, 0.787 seconds behind.

Aston Martin and RB were battling it out for 11th place, with Fernando Alonso ahead of Yuki Tsunoda and Lance Stroll ahead of Daniel Ricciardo.

Pierre Gasly was 15th, ahead of the sole Haas driver, Nico Hulkenberg, while his Sauber team-mates Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu finished last among the drivers who set the relevant times.

Esteban Ocon finished 19th without scoring a time after suffering a power unit failure while preparing for his first fast lap, forcing him to stop on the track and walk away from his car.

Ocon also lost the entirety of FP1 due to an engine failure, which forced a power unit change for FP2, which he also finished 19th.

His break in the race, which occurred around a quarter of an hour later, caused the session to be suspended for nine minutes, although there were few cars on the track due to drizzle at the time, which caused the race to be abandoned.

Oliver Bearman, replacing the suspended Kevin Magnussen, was classified in last place, also without a time, after crashing his Haas at the first corner.

Bearman entered the corner at too high a speed but tried to escape the slowdown too late, hitting the barriers with his left front corner before coming to a stop against the wall.

“I’m such an idiot,” he said before getting out of the car without a set lap time.