A 1m17.277s from Leclerc, his second hot lap on soft tyres, gave him a handy advantage over the rest of the field and put him clear of then runner-up Carlos Sainz, who was shuffled down to third by Verstappen's later second soft run.
The Dutchman had been late to parlay with the other runners in FP2 owing to a spot of damage to his Red Bull RB20, sustained in a kerb strike during FP1, and thus continued running on the mediums as the others had long since switched to softs.
