George Russell and Lewis Hamilton formed a Mercedes one-two during a wet third and final practice session at the British Grand Prix, leading the way from McLaren rival and Friday pace-setter Lando Norris.
After an overcast but largely dry first day of practice, heavy rainfall overnight and into the morning meant the drivers were greeted with a sodden track surface for the start of FP3, giving Pirelli’s green-marked intermediate tyres a proper run out.
Highlighting just how wet and slippery the circuit was in the early minutes of the one-hour session, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen kicked things off with a time of 1m 54.798s, almost half a minute slower than the Friday benchmark posted by Norris.
Moments later, Max Verstappen went for a wild spin at the exit of Brooklands, prompting some gasps from the thousands of dedicated fans lining the track, before Pierre Gasly lost control of his car under braking for Club, beaching it in the gravel and causing a red flag.
As drivers returned to the pits, with further showers holding off for the time being, TV cameras picked up Daniel Ricciardo unusually weaving his way down the fast lane – an incident the stewards noted and then decided to investigate after the session.
When the session resumed a few minutes later and a host of cars headed back out, Russell reported that the track conditions were starting to improve amid only some small drops of rain, but Bottas said he had “no grip at all” after going for a low-speed spin.
As for the lap times, Hamilton worked his way down to a 1m 38.065s at the halfway mark, putting him a few tenths ahead of Charles Leclerc, home favourite Norris and Verstappen, with a drier line starting to appear in several sections of the lap.
The second half of the session brought further, gradual improvements up and down the order, with Russell producing a 1m 37.529s – a time that was effectively locked in when another shower arrived and topped up the puddles around the track.
Hamilton wound up just a few hundredths behind team mate Russell, with Norris completing the top-three positions in his McLaren from the lead Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, the aforementioned Verstappen and Leclerc, and Oscar Piastri.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was one of few drivers to improve in the closing stages to go eighth, edging out the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez, while Nico Hulkenberg kept his heavily-upgraded Haas in the top-10 places in the mixed conditions.
Williams pair Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant sandwiched the other Aston Martin of Lance Stroll in positions P11 to P13, with Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Ocon leading the charge for their respective RB, Kick Sauber and Alpine teams.
Kevin Magnussen was next up in 17th, in front of Ricciardo, who is set for that trip to the stewards after the session, as Zhou Guanyu (Kick Sauber) and the sidelined Gasly – who will take an engine penalty this weekend – bringing up the rear.
