Norris shades Leclerc and Piastri in tight final practice

Lando Norris has topped third practice at F1’s Italian GP, heading Ferrari hero Charles Leclerc and team-mate Oscar Piastri ahead of a pivotal qualifying session at Monza.

Norris, who is looking to start chipping away at Piastri’s 34-point championship leader, bested his team-mate by less than two tenths at Monza’s iconic Temple of Speed, with a late effort from Leclerc just 0.021s shy of the Briton.

Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda led the early running on hard tyres as all three Pirelli compounds saw action across a variety of run plans.

After 25 minutes Verstappen dipped below the 1m20 barrier with a 1m19.688s on softs, the first man to go faster than Norris’ leading FP2 time on Friday.

It took until the final 20 minutes for pre-event favourite McLaren to start showing its hand, with Norris vaulting to the top of the table courtesy of a 1m19.331s.

That was a handy quarter of a second faster than championship leading team-mate Piastri, who set a 1m19.578s lap, closely followed by Racing Bulls man Isack Hadjar after another promising showing for the French junior.

Piastri found more time on his second soft-tyre run with a 1m19.496s to reduce the deficit to Norris to 0.167s, with the McLaren pair once again emerging as the favourites for pole later on Saturday.

But as was the case in 2024, Ferrari has emerged as a threat as its home race as Leclerc overcame several oversteer scares to take second away from Piastri at the end, his 1m19.35s lap just 0.021s shy of Norris.

Returning to the scene of Red Bull’s worst performances of 2024, reigning world champion Max Verstappen was an encouraging fourth in the RB21 just 0.002s off Piastri.

The Dutchman’s lap further underlined team advisor Helmut Marko’s optimism that the squad can actually be in the mix with the McLarens this weekend.

Fifth-placed Mercedes driver George Russell wasn’t far back either, shipping just two tenths to Norris, ahead of what is shaping up to be a qualifying session decided by minor details.

Sauber was the surprise package of FP3 with rookie Gabriel Bortoleto taking sixth ahead of the second Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, with Racing Bulls man Hadjar snatching eighth.

Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli recovered from his early FP2 exit with a tweaked run plan to cover all his bases, and the Italian’s soft-tyre run left him ninth ahead of Williams driver Alex Albon.

Qualifying for the 2025 Italian Grand Prix follows at 16:00 local time.

F1 Italian GP – FP3 results