F1 Singapore GP: Leclerc tops wet final practice from Verstappen

While Saturday's final one-hour practice session started on time, heavy rainfall in the streets of Singapore meant the pitlane remained closed for the first half.

When the pitlane finally opened at 18:30 local time, just 30 minutes of practice remained to sample the wet conditions.

AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly was the first man to venture out on track, inevitably bolting on Pirelli's full wet tyres for an exploratory run.

While Gasly set a cautious timed lap of 2m09.894s, he was joined by team-mate Yuki Tsunoda and the six cars from Alfa Romeo, McLaren and Aston Martin.

But efforts by F1 to dry the track in the first 30 minutes appeared to pay off as Alfa's Valtteri Bottas quickly suggested that intermediates were a better option.

When reigning world champion Max Verstappen joined the fray with 20 minutes left on the clock, intermediates were indeed the tyre of choice on his Red Bull.

On the inters, Verstappen took 1.7 seconds out of Carlos Sainz, who had been the quickest of the full wet runners, and it prompted his colleagues to follow the Dutchman's example and use the green sidewalled tyres from that point onwards.

Verstappen generally stayed in front despite momentarily being jumped by first Gasly and then Ferrari man Charles Leclerc, as track conditions picked up quickly and times took a tumble with seconds at a time.

Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri AT03

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

The runaway championship leader was also the first driver below the two-minute barrier, but Leclerc then took over the lead with a 1m58.899s.

Leclerc carried on and established a 1m57.782s late on to top the session, while Verstappen's fastest effort pitted him five tenths in arrears.

Behind the pair, Sainz took third, a full second down on his team-mate, with Alpine's Fernando Alonso best of the rest in fourth.

Sergio Perez aborted a late flyer to stay fifth, followed by Aston's Lance Stroll and Alpine's Esteban Ocon.

Sebastian Vettel was eighth in the second Aston, with George Russell the first of the Mercedes drivers in ninth and McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the top 10.

Haas' Kevin Magnussen grabbed 11th, while seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton dropped from sixth to 12th after only completing seven laps.

Gasly ended up in 13th ahead of Mick Schumacher and team-mate Tsunoda.

Lando Norris was 16th for McLaren followed by the first Williams of Alex Albon.

Alfa Romeo duo Bottas and Zhou Guanyu propped up the timesheets, only ahead of the second Williams of Nicholas Latifi.

F1 Singapore GP - FP3 results

Cla	Driver		Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Charles Leclerc		Ferrari	11	1'57.782
2	Max Verstappen		Red Bull	12	1'58.308	0.526	0.526
3	Carlos Sainz		Ferrari	12	1'58.848	1.066	0.540
4	Fernando Alonso		Alpine	9	1'59.429	1.647	0.581
5	Sergio Perez		Red Bull	11	1'59.526	1.744	0.097
6	Lance Stroll		Aston Martin	11	2'00.373	2.591	0.847
7	Esteban Ocon		Alpine	9	2'00.911	3.129	0.538
8	Sebastian Vettel		Aston Martin	11	2'01.007	3.225	0.096
9	George Russell		Mercedes	10	2'01.010	3.228	0.003
10	Daniel Ricciardo		McLaren	13	2'01.036	3.254	0.026
11	Kevin Magnussen		Haas	13	2'01.089	3.307	0.053
12	Lewis Hamilton		Mercedes	8	2'01.220	3.438	0.131
13	Pierre Gasly		AlphaTauri	15	2'01.245	3.463	0.025
14	Mick Schumacher		Haas	13	2'01.502	3.720	0.257
15	Yuki Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	14	2'01.679	3.897	0.177
16	Lando Norris		McLaren	13	2'01.791	4.009	0.112
17	Alex Albon		Williams	13	2'01.907	4.125	0.116
18	Valtteri Bottas		Alfa Romeo	11	2'02.066	4.284	0.159
19	Zhou Guanyu		Alfa Romeo	11	2'02.599	4.817	0.533
20	Nicholas Latifi		Williams	10	2'03.510	5.728	0.911
View full results