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The rain boded well for

Fernando Alonso

, who surprised the favorites in the third free session of the Canadian GP by setting the fastest time (1:33.836) ahead of

Pierre Gasly

and

Sebastian Vettel

.

The two-time world champion, who on Friday had already shown the speed of his Alpine, took advantage of the last minutes of work to lead the table, something he had not achieved since his time at Ferrari.

With a quarter of an hour to go, Alonso was the first to dare to do without the extreme rain tires to mount the intermediate compound.

On a sodden tarmac and a temperature that barely exceeded 10ºC, the risks taken at the wheel of the A522 bore fruit for the man from Oviedo, who was 53 thousandths ahead of the Frenchman from Alpha Tauri and 55 of the four-time world champion.

Alonso's ambition contrasted with the precautions of the favourites, who preferred to reserve strength for the qualifying session.

After suffering an exit from the track without consequences,

Max Verstappen

only completed 10 laps, the same as Sergio Pérez, his garage partner.

Ferrari, for its part, also did not take one more risk with

Charles Leclerc

, who will start last Sunday after changing several parts of his power unit.

dry race

Something more aggressive was

Carlos Sainz

, who led the classification during the first minutes and was able to complete 18 laps.

After saving some delicate situation, on a terribly slippery surface, the man from Madrid finished in tenth place.

However, the race pace shown during Friday's afternoon session leaves Carlos in a good position.

In fact, according to the calculations of his six laps with medium tires, Sainz would be the fastest in the long runs (1:17.604), four tenths faster than Alonso, who in his nine laps with the hard compound averaged (1:18.064 ).

The FIA ​​weather service denies any chance of rain at race time.

However, this same forecast raises up to 80% the risk of precipitation during the qualifying session on Saturday.

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  • Fernando Alonso