Charles Leclerc set the fastest time in final practice for the 2022 Dutch Grand Prix, with George Russell just 0.066s off the Ferrari driver in P2 for Mercedes to leave Max Verstappen third for Red Bull.

Leclerc’s car was shielded by a barricade of Ferrari engineers as they undertook work on the car midway through the session. The team said there was “no issue”, despite the row of mechanics, and Leclerc ended up finishing first overall with a time of 1m 11.632s, set with 14 minutes left.

Russell went second for Mercedes by 0.066s while Verstappen, who held the early soft-tyred benchmark, finished third. The Dutchman did emerge much later than the others for his second soft-tyred run and wound up 0.161s off Leclerc’s pace.

Alpine’s Fernando Alonso took seventh ahead of Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, while Mick Schumacher turned on the pace in Sector 2 to go ninth for Haas, dropping Lando Norris to P10 for McLaren.

Kevin Magnussen finished five-hundreths off his team mate in P11 for Haas while Lance Stroll was just under three-tenths off Vettel in P12.