Bottas fastest again in tight F1 Tuscan GP final practice

Valtteri Bottas looks the man to beat heading into qualifying for Formula 1’s Tuscan Grand Prix after the Mercedes driver completed a practice sweep.

Bottas posted a new lap record around the Mugello Circuit with a 1m16.530 during the qualifying simulation runs on Pirelli’s softest available tyre, just 0.017s clear of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

World championship leader Lewis Hamilton admitted he has been struggling to get to grips with the tricky, high-speed Mugello track and has ended up slower than Bottas in all three sessions so far this weekend.

Hamilton was able to close his deficit to his teammate and main title rival as he wound up 0.083s adrift in third place.

Lance Stroll was a strong fourth and just half a second off the pace ahead of the impressive AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly and Racing Point teammate Sergio Perez.

Charles Leclerc returned to the top-10 for Ferrari as he finished seventh and less than a second down, with Alex Albon, Daniil Kvyat and Romain Grosjean completing the top 10 for Red Bull, AlphaTauri and Haas respectively.

Just outside of the top 10 came Renault’s Esteban Ocon, Carlos Sainz’s McLaren and the two Alfa Romeo cars headed by Antonio Giovinazzi, who got the better of teammate Kimi Raikkonen by a tenth.

Kevin Magnussen was unable to mirror the pace of Grosjean as he took 15th, ahead of Williams driver Nicholas Latifi, while Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel were a lowly P17 and P18 in the second Renault and Ferrari machines.

Following his crash in second practice, Lando Norris endured a tough final practice session and was the slowest of the 19 drivers who completed a timed-lap in his McLaren.

George Russell was the only driver who failed to set a laptime after reporting that his Williams car had suffered a brake-by-wire failure in his FW43 at the end of his installation lap.

FULL FINAL PRACTICE RESULTS FOR THE 2020 F1 TUSCAN GRAND PRIX.