A flurry of soft-tyre runs in preparation for qualifying later on Friday defined the final 10 minutes of practice, and Verstappen was one of the earlier takers to punch in a 1m35.912s to overturn Alex Albon’s timesheet-topping lap as Williams opened running on the softest compound.
The Dutchman’s time could not be beaten; team-mate Sergio Perez set a time 0.3s shy, but Leclerc got closer and was about half a tenth short in each sector of the ultimate headliner.
Lewis Hamilton reeled off best splits in the opening pair of sectors, but lost time in the final part of the lap to cross the line a tenth short of Leclerc’s effort – and two hundredths clear of Perez’s soft-tyre time.
Kevin Magnussen took his vastly upgraded Haas – which now features the in-vogue downwashing sidepods to match the other teams – to fifth on the timing boards, a scant 0.002s ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes.
Albon’s time was good enough for seventh over Carlos Sainz, who noticeably struggled with the bumpiness of the circuit on board a stiffly sprung Ferrari, but nonetheless made incremental gains over the course of the session.
Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10, just clear of home favourite Logan Sargeant.
The early phases of the session prioritised running on the harder tyres, and Verstappen took the early advantage on the hard compound tyre despite several instances of surpassing track limits – which are not monitored in practice.
Hamilton, trialling Mercedes’ new floor that it hopes will offer insight towards its progress for 2024, then moved ahead following the opening 15 minutes of the session by a tenth and on the same compound of tyre, having set the best second sector up to that point.
His 1m37.394s set on the hards remained the best lap for over 20 minutes, but this was then overcome by Lando Norris’s 1m37.256s on the medium compound as the session drew towards its final quarter.
Norris did not set a time on softs and only stacked up in 15th overall, behind Esteban Ocon, Yuki Tsunoda, and the returning Daniel Ricciardo.
Ricciardo moved back into his AlphaTauri F1 seat having been deputised for by Liam Lawson over the previous five races as the Australian recovered from his broken hand, sustained in an FP2 crash at Zandvoort.
Alfa Romeo pair Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas were 16th and 17th, while Fernando Alonso was only 18th having only used the hard tyres throughout the session.
Qatar sprint winner Oscar Piastri was 19th having avoided a moment on the exit of Turn 8 after clipping the kerb and running wide, which put him on the grass as he wrestled with the wheel to reclaim control. He eventually managed to find enough grip to quell his bucking McLaren and did well to keep it out of the gravel.
Lance Stroll suffered with braking issues on the left front wheel on his Aston Martin AMR23 and was restricted to just two laps of practice to severely compromise his weekend.