Miss Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc faster on the very last lap | formula 1

After long emergency deliberations following the rocket attack near the F1 circuit, the drivers ‘normally’ climbed back into their cars this afternoon. The race weekend will continue as planned and so there was still one hour of training to be done. The teams did not focus on tomorrow night’s race, as was often the case in the past in VT3, but everyone completed one or more qualifying runs.

Max Verstappen also did that, when he finally showed himself on the street circuit of Jeddah after more than 20 minutes of training. The Dutchman waited for ideal conditions and immediately came out of the garage on ‘red’ rubber, while his biggest competitors had been busy for a while. Verstappen was unable to simulate qualifying last night, partly due to a virtual safety car, but this afternoon he showed that he should definitely be looked at in a few hours. After initially sitting behind the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, he went significantly faster not much later: 1.29.768.

_{Watch Verstappen’s fastest lap here}

And the world champion wasn’t ready yet. Ten minutes before the end of practice, he came out again on fresh soft tires for another try. Verstappen was making a big improvement when he shot over the curbs at high speed in the last sector, lifted his front end from the tarmac and logically broke off his lap, so as not to run the extra risk of damage.

That miss gave Leclerc the opportunity, when the clock was already at zero, to take over the fastest time. The Monegask came to 1.29.735 and thus won 0.033 seconds over Verstappen, who already showed in that aborted lap that he could go a bit faster. Sergio Pérez signed for the third time, ahead of Sainz and Valtteri Bottas who looked good in his Alfa Romeo. Mercedes again lacked speed, especially on the straights and did not get further than P11 (Lewis Hamilton) and P14 (George Russell). Should they start worrying about the rest of the weekend?

_{Watch here how Verstappen shot hard over the curbs}