In preparation for the year’s most crucial qualification, Charles Leclerc is boosting his confidence. The Monegasque driver finished the third and final practice session on the sinuous asphalt ribbon in Monte-Carlo as the fastest, just ahead of Max Verstappen, who was on a slower tire, and Lando Norris.
Not everyone is eager to drive as many final (fast) laps as possible before the most important and beautiful qualification session of the year. With little fuel on board, tricky corners, and the guardrails close by, mastering the over three-kilometer street circuit in the tax haven is a hellish but also extreme challenge.
In the third and final training hour, all teams are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Despite the two mandatory pit stops introduced from this edition, position at the GP Monaco is more than half the battle. Pole position is almost equivalent to a victory a day later. When the big favorites have also stepped into their cars after a quarter of an hour, the proportions become somewhat clearer. However, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc on the softest tire, which already caused some headaches in Imola last week, initially do not reach the time set by Nico Hülkenberg on the slower medium tire.
Leclerc is the first to go under the German’s time, on the soft tire. Lando Norris too. Max Verstappen, on mediums, tops the list half an hour in, ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda. However, it remains a game of musical chairs: the grip is getting better, the lap times are going down. In the end, it is again Leclerc who finishes the pre-qualification session as the best. Just like in FP1 and FP2, he sets the tone, even on the softest tire that does not seem to thrive well with the rising track temperatures. A few minutes before the end, the session is prematurely ended due to a crash by Hamilton.
