Yesterday provided a surprise in more ways than one. Leclerc topped both practice sessions in a strong showing for Ferrari, while Red Bull dropped well off the pace. Verstappen was struggling for car balance and said "it can't be worse" than his Friday showing.
All teams will have taken to their simulators to find set-up fixes overnight ready to be run in real life in FP3, and we suspect the midnight oil would've been burning the longest in Milton Keynes. Can Red Bull catch up with Ferrari and McLaren?
Imola has been blessed with bright and beautiful conditions once again, the sun beaming down with only a light wind at the moment. A perfect spring day.
Norris, Stroll and Piastri are the early takers to the track - coming out slightly earlier than expected given there is usually a sedate start to FP3. We'll take it.
The early trio all pit after an install lap - which indicates system and component changes from FP2 - while Alonso, Perez, Verstappen and Leclerc are also on track.
Both Red Bull drivers are on mediums, Leclerc is on softs and the rest are on hards. It is expected to be a one-stop race if run in normal conditions, but what compounds to use in the race will be an unknown given Pirelli has gone a step softer compared to two years ago. Can the C5 soft last a race stint?
Perez leads the early times with a 1m17.682s from Verstappen and Leclerc - just under two seconds than the best lap times from Friday. Plenty more to come.
Verstappen moves up to second with a 1m16.471s on mediums. So far Red Bull looks to have made a step compared to Friday but we'll wait to see what the rest produce before being confident with that reading.
Verstappen tests track limits coming out of Rivazza as he flirts with the gravel trap with his right-rear wheel but gets away with it. The Dutch driver improves on his personal best with a 1m16.366s but stays second, as Leclerc improves moments later with a 1m16.087s.
Sainz takes over at the top with a 1m16.067s on the softs, beating Leclerc's earlier effort by 0.02s. The track is getting busier now but we're still yet to see either RB or Williams.
"Where is all that two seconds?" Hamilton asks over team radio after being informed of the gap to Sainz at the top. He's told 0.8s is on the straights, so we'll take that as the other 1.2s is lost in the corners. Hamilton remains 14th and seven-tenths slower than team-mate Russell.
Alonso is OK and he has walked away from his Aston that is buried in the barriers. The replays show him losing the rear of his car going into the second part of Rivazza and with the short run-off he plants the rear of his Aston into the wall.
Due to the force of the hit the medical car has been deployed to check over Alonso. The car is being recovered by the marshals as Aston mechanics prepare to assess the damage with an eye on qualifying.
Both Alpines, RBs and Piastri nip out but on a mix of medium and soft tyres, so no full qualifying sims yet. Meanwhile the medical car is parked in front of the Red Bull garage when the green light at the end of pitlane was shown so it is trying to get back in position while the track is live.
Mercedes looks distinctly fourth fastest again, with Russell seventh and Hamilton ninth following their soft tyre runs. Ricciardo splits them after a solid lap on mediums.
Hamilton improves but can only climb to ninth ahead of Ricciardo. Tsunoda has snuck up to seventh unnoticed - on the mediums too. That RB looks decent around Imola.
A slight lull in the track action as we move into the final 15 minutes of the session. Both Red Bulls and Norris are yet to touch the soft tyres in FP3 so we're keen to see where they stack up.
Those on track, Bottas and Sargeant, break into the top 10 in ninth and 10th respectively while a few moments ago Albon moved up to sixth on the times.
Stroll moves up to seventh with his final soft tyre run ahead of qualifying. There is a queue coming out of pitlane and everyone coming out has fresh sets of softs on. Pre-quali coming up!
The Red Bull driver has gone off coming out of Variante Alta - he reports he is OK. That has wrecked everyone else's soft tyre laps so we go into quali largely blind of the pack's pace!
Replays reveal what happened to Perez. The Mexican took too much kerb going into the chicane and that unsettled his Red Bull and left him out of control and nudging the wall with his front wing.
