Max Verstappen has topped a session that again suggested McLaren will be a factor in this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix.
That’s despite Oscar Piastri being the lead Papaya runner in seventh, he and team-mate Lando Norris having shown strongly before a flurry of laps in the dying moments of the session.
Those came as conditions improved, the final practice session having started wet, deteriorating at points, before easing in the last 10 minutes to draw some Hollywood times.
The initial wet conditions didn’t deter Verstappen nor Liam Lawson, the latter on debut in place of the injured Daniel Ricciardo.
A damp track was the worst possible scenario for Lawson, who had watched throughout the dry running on Friday.
He took a conservative approach, unlike Verstappen, who got onto the white line at Turn 3 and had a snap of oversteer, which walked him off the road.
The Dutchman kept it out of the barrier, though did bounce over the grass on exit.
Conditions caught out several drivers, Kevin Magnussen the worst offender in the opening moments when he looped the Haas exiting Turn 3.
As the Dane applied the throttle, the car’s back end stepped out, and he tagged the barrier to draw the red flag after 11 minutes.
That interruption lasted 12 minutes, with the field heading back out.
The weather had clouded over; before the stoppage, the sun had been out despite the rain falling during the opening minutes.
Drivers were divided on tyre choice, with a mix of full-wet and intermediate tyres. The latter appeared the better option after 25 minutes, Verstappen going fastest with a 1:25.197s despite the gloomy conditions.
A second red flag came out when Zhou Guanyu spun at Turn 6, the back end coming around on the Alfa Romeo Sauber driver to bury him in the gravel.
It was another 10 minutes before the session resumed, leaving 26 minutes remaining at the restart.
Feedback from those who headed out suggested the track was ready for intermediate rubber – some having made that call initially while others opting for the full wets.
That was showcased when Lando Norris moved to the top of the timesheets, on the inters, with a 1:25.086s.
A dryer line was beginning to form in some areas, still wet but without the sheen where the water had been cleared somewhat.
Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren then went fastest with a 1:24.893s, which stood for less than a minute as Norris improved on his earlier effort to go fastest again.
His 1:23.677s saw him 1.2 seconds clear of the pack, headed by Piastri in a McLaren one-two – the Australian all but matching his team-mate soon after.
Turn 1, Tarzan, was proving a hotspot with both Ferraris, Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin, and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon running long and needing to use the escape road around the back of the gravel pack.
With 12 minutes to run, Lawson had a spin exiting the penultimate corner, which left him stranded, pointing in the wrong direction on the inside of the corner.
For safety’s sake, the red flag was shown so the Kiwi could recover the car, having managed to get away with little more than grazing the front wing on the inside barrier.
Officially, that interruption lasted four minutes since Lawson could recover the car.
Lawson had put in a good account of himself, recording a time within 0.3s off the pace of his vastly more experienced team-mate, Yuki Tsunoda.
In the final minutes, track conditions improved rapidly, while drivers began pushing the envelope as they began to think about qualifying later in the day.
That saw Verstappen improve to a 1:21.631s, which left him 1.1s clear of the field, George Russell having improved to second best at that time.
The Mercedes driver was improving, too, narrowing the gap to 0.3s with a minute remaining to sit second.
He remained there as others improved behind him, pushing Piastri to seventh as the McLaren driver took the chequered flag.
Lawson ended the session 18th, logging a critical 26 laps, the most of any driver in the hour-long session.
His 1:26.343 was 4.7s away from the outright pace, though he was not pushing on in the final moments as those at the top of the standings were.
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