Ian Fergusson
BBC weather forecaster

Air temperature is 29.5C and the track 48.8C. Wind from the south east to south, with gusts to 19mph in the past hour.

Dry; FIA official risk of rain is 0%.

Olli Caldwell
Former F2, F3 and Alpine development driver on Sports Extra 2

It's a track where you can be on the edge. There's a fine margin between being on the track and they've got a little bit of run off here at most corners before dipping into the gravel.

Like most tracks the car is on edge here in all of the sectors and it will be about who can be on edge the most without dipping a wheel into the gravel or making a mistake.

The first part of qualifying is under way. A smattering of cars head out. The others wait.

You can listen to live commentary now via this page and BBC Sounds.

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Max Verstappen can always pull it together when it matters most but all we've seen so far this weekend suggests he needs to find considerably more to beat the McLarens to pole position. He finished almost a second off Oscar Piastri's time in final practice.

Image source, Getty Images

• 2024 – Lando Norris (McLaren)
• 2023 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
• 2022 – Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
• 2021 – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
• 2020 – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

Image source, Getty Images

Williams team principal James Vowles speaking to Sky Sports after FP3:"It was a tricky session, still difficult for us. I think we made a tiny step forward. In reality there's still more to do. Carlos' [Sainz] lap wasn't quite where it should be. There was traffic in that last sector, so it was a little bit better than that, but not good enough really.

For Alex [Albon], we had a reliability problem in the car that's still being looked into, so he wasn't able to get out for that second run. I think the reality today is certainly to get one car into Q3."

On Barcelona being a weaker circuit for the team: "I think if we go back the last four, five years in our history, this circuit really stand out as somewhere we haven't performed. We've changed quite a bit of the characteristics for this year. You can see across the first seven races, the car has worked, but there are corner sequences here that really exemplify a weakness we still have in the car. It's slightly better, but nowhere where it needs to be."

On the technical directive introduced this weekend: "The car we have here is actually a little bit quicker than the car we had in Imola and Miami because we took this opportunity to update the front wings as well and that update was more potent than the technical directive.

I'm pretty sure everyone had stiffened their front flaps. In other words is it working, yes because we've all put work in to ensure we're stiffer. All it does really is it's a slight balancing tool. I don't think it was ever going to change the order."

Hard to tell exactly how Ferrari will get on in qualifying. Charles Leclerc was third quickest in final practice but Lewis Hamilton had a gear box issue just before the end of the session.

Oscar Piastri is aiming for his fourth pole position of the season and is looking good for it, having finished final practice half a second clear of team-mate Lando Norris.

Key will be nailing the lap first time because the hot temperatures here means the soft tyres are struggling to hold up for too long.

Hello!

Welcome to our coverage of qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Oscar Piastri is looking the man to beat after topping two of three practice sessions, with Lando Norris headlining the other one.

They are showing no signs of being hampered by the tightening of flexi-wing regulations, but will that continue in the fight for pole?

Qualifying gets under way in just under 30 minutes.

All signs are pointing to a McLaren car on pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix after they dominated all three practice sessions.

But you can never rule out this guy putting it all together when it matters...

Image source, Getty Images

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent in Barcelona

Image source, Reuters

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri set an impressive pace in final practice at the Spanish Grand Prix, heading team-mate Lando Norris by 0.526 seconds.

The championship leader’s margin was exaggerated by the fact that Norris ran wide at the fast Turn Nine on his first flying lap on the soft tyres.

That meant the Briton set his fastest time on tyres that were past their best.

But he was still 0.217secs faster than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in third place.

Mercedes’ George Russell was fourth and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull fifth - 0.988secs slower than Piastri.

Norris’ off was caused by the recurrence of an aerodynamic phenomenon known as “porpoising”, which affected many cars heavily in 2022, when the current rules were first introduced, but tends to occur only rarely now.

Porpoising is when the airflow under the car ‘stalls’ and causes a sudden loss of downforce, before the flow starts again, before stalling again, setting up a high-frequency bouncing of the car.

Norris was informed by his engineer that they could fix the porpoising but only if he returned to the pits so they could raise the ride-height.

Behind Verstappen, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar was sixth, ahead of Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Hadjar’s team-mate Liam Lawson completed the top 10.

Right, we'll be back for build up to qualifying at 14:30 BST. I'll leave you to have a read of Andrew Benson's final practice report until then.

See you soon!

Olli Caldwell
Former F2, F3 and Alpine development driver on Sports Extra 3

McLaren are really showing some dominance and looking confident going into qualifying.

"Downshifts are not working properly. Something is wrong with the gear shift."

Hmm, a late issue for Lewis Hamilton as he reports a problem with gear shift and he is trundling around the track now.

Not ideal a couple of hours out from qualifying.

11) Bortoleto

12) Hulkenberg

13) Sainz

14) Tsunoda

15) Stroll

16) Gasly

17) Colapinto

18) Ocon

19) Albon

20) Bearman

1) Piastri

2) Norris

3) Leclerc

4) Russell

5) Verstappen

6) Hadjar

7) Antonelli

8) Alonso

9) Hamilton

10 Lawson

A McLaren clean sweep of practice, with Oscar Piastri fastest in second and third practice.