Leclerc is hoping to repeat his Monaco heroics where he converted pole into a win, but could be hit with a grid penalty.
His swerve towards Norris on the run down to Turn Seven was described as a moment of “road rage” by Sky Sports F1’s Karun Chandhok.
He is meeting the stewards to explain his actions after being frustrated at alleged blocking from Norris, then came across Verstappen and Sainz also having their own incident, without colliding, on the run down to Turn 10.
Russell set the pace in the first half of the session but dropped to fifth at 0.174s behind, with Hamilton in sixth after not putting a clean lap together.
Sergio Perez has a three-grid place penalty for Sunday’s race, after driving back to the pits last time out in Canada with a damaged rear wing, and could be starting in the midfield as he’s been lacking performance all weekend.
The Mexican was three-quarters of a second slower than Sainz, ahead of Williams’ Alex Albon, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
Sainz was 0.030s ahead of Norris on the last soft tyre runs in final practice, with Leclerc only 0.037s behind his Ferrari team-mate.
Verstappen, who has a fourth power unit in his car this weekend, so is on the verge of needing a grid penalty for using a fifth engine, was 0.074s behind Sainz but has shown he can produce when it matters most this year.
While Verstappen may have missed out on pole by a miniscule margin of just 0.020s, the 12-month turnaround in fortunes for Red Bull at the fast, flowing Spanish circuit was still stark.
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At last year’s race, Verstappen claimed pole by almost half a second. He then won on the Sunday by the best part of half a minute.
Red Bull had brought more upgrades to their 2024 car this weekend, whereas McLaren had not, and Verstappen said of the RB20’s pace: “I think it’s been OK, but not good enough, clearly.
“These kinds of tracks, I was hoping, of course, to be ahead. But the other teams are catching up. We’ve seen this already in the last few races, so it’s definitely a lot harder. We need to do everything perfect to be first. We just need to bring more performance to the car.”
