FP3: Perez leads Leclerc by just 0.07s in final Azerbaijan practice

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez beat championship rivals Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen to the quickest time in third and final practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The Mexican, who won last time out in Monaco, clocked a 1m 43.170s on soft tyres to end the session 0.070s ahead of Leclerc with Verstappen two tenths further back in P3.

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The start of the session was delayed by 15 minutes to allow time for barriers to be repaired following incidents in the F2 race.

Red Bull and Ferrari traded places at the top of the timesheets throughout, Leclerc and Carlos Sainz setting the early pace before the track ramped up and qualifying runs saw Perez set the benchmark. Verstappen missed out on a chance to improve having encountered Fernando Alonso's Alpine, but Perez suffered a similar fate when he caught up to Alex Albon on his final flyer.

Sainz ended up fourth quickest, 0.4s off the pace, with former team McLaren showing an impressive turn of pace as Lando Norris finished fifth and Daniel Ricciardo within a tenth of his team mate in sixth.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was seventh, ahead of the leading Mercedes of George Russell, the Briton 1.4s off the pace as the silver cars seemed to be struggling with significant porpoising once more.

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel completed the top 10, ahead of Alonso, 11th, and Lewis Hamilton in P12.

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Lance Stroll was 13th, a fraction clear of Alfa Romeo rookie Zhou Guanyu, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda – P10 to P16 separated by just two tenths of a second.

Albon was 17th, six tenths clear of team mate Nicholas Latifi as the Williams duo sandwiched Mick Schumacher and Bottas.

Qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix begins at 1815 local time. Head to the RACE HUB to see how you can catch all the action.

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