Antonelli tops crash-strewn final Madrid practice

Andrea Kimi Antonelli topped an extended but heavily disrupted final practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix after the Madring circuit claimed the cars of Lewis Hamilton, Alex Albon, and Oliver Bearman.

Albon was the first to write off his car, with a seemingly innocuous tap of the wall entering Turn 21 breaking his rear-left suspension. Though he was able to continue back to pit lane, the extensive repairs required ruled him out of the session with only two laps completed and no time set.

Hamilton crashed less than 10m later. The Ferrari driver was on a fast lap, having just set a purple middle sector, when he carried too much speed into the final corner, sailing past the apex and into the barrier in a plume of tire smoke.

Hamilton kept the engine running and backed out of the barrier in a bid to make it back to pit lane — which required him to complete an entire lap of the circuit — but his front wing got caught behind his front tires, where it dragged along the road as he attempted to limp home.

He rejected multiple calls from the pit wall to park his car, even after his front-right tire became punctured, but eventually relented at the exit of Turn 14, withdrawing from the session.

Repairs to the barriers, however, kept the session suspended for almost 40 minutes. It would have been long enough for the scheduled hour to expire, so race control stopped the clock with just over 15m remaining, effectively giving drivers a bonus quarter-hour to prepare for qualifying.

Charles Leclerc had been leading the field at the red flag, but with the field on fresh soft tires, Antonelli rocketed into top spot with a best time of 1m 32.797s.

Leclerc was shuffled down to second, but the Monegasque was only 0.166s off the pace.

Oscar Piastri was only 0.023s further back in third, making it three different teams inside the top three split by less than 0.2s.

Everyone still running completed their qualifying simulation runs, but the session didn’t reach its conclusion, with Bearman bringing it to an early end with around a minute still on the clock.

The Haas driver had just set a personal best first sector and was hurtling through Turn 10 at speed when his car suddenly snapped, spinning him backwards into the barrier at Turn 11.

The oval-style SAFER barrier did massive damage to the left-hand side of his car, ripping off both wheels and likely causing chassis damage.

Bearman apologised to the team over radio before stepping out of the wreckage uninjured.

The crash puts his participation in qualifying in doubt, with just over 2h between the end of the prolonged practice session and the start of qualifying later today.

Lando Norris was fourth, 0.236s off the pace, ahead of Max Verstappen, who was 0.375s adrift.

George Russell couldn’t match his session-topping teammate and was a significant 0.702s adrift, ahead of only Liam Lawson, 1.105s adrift, among the frontrunners.

Nico Hulkenberg led the midfield in eighth ahead of the crashed-out Hamilton and Audi teammate Gabriel Bortoleto.

Franco Colapinto was 11th ahead of Haas teammates Esteban Ocon and Bearman.

The long suspension was good for Arvid Lindblad, whose car was still being rebuilt following his heavy crash in FP2, his Racing Bulls team having opted against breaking curfew overnight to complete the job. He joined the session after the resumption and was 14th, one place and 0.06s ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

Pierre Gasly was baulked on his final flying lap by Norris and ended 16th ahead of Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, with Albon the only driver without a time.

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