Sebastian Vettel led team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in final practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday as Scuderia Ferrari ended Mercedes AMG PETRONAS’ apparent early weekend domination at the desert track.
Vettel set a best time of 1m31.683s on the Supersoft Pirelli tyre to edge out team-mate Raikkonen by 0.040s to end Nico Rosberg’s stay at the top after the Mercedes team had dominated on Friday.
Rosberg was third quickest, once again outpacing team-mate Lewis Hamilton, this time by 0.056s, with the top four covered by just under half a second.
Valtteri Bottas was the only other driver to get within a second of Vettel’s pace, with the Williams Martini Racing driver 0.992s adrift in fifth, with Romain Grosjean an excellent sixth for the Haas F1 Team, 1.399s off the pace.
Daniil Kvyat claimed seventh for Red Bull Racing ahead of the second Haas of Esteban Gutierrez, while the second Williams of Felipe Massa and the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo closed out the top ten.
Marcus Ericsson was an encouraging eleventh for the Sauber F1 Team ahead of Renault’s Kevin Magnussen, while Jenson Button and Stoffel Vandoorne were thirteenth and fourteenth respectively for McLaren-Honda, separated by just 0.040s.
Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr appeared to struggle for Scuderia Toro Rosso to end up fifteenth and sixteenth fastest, ahead of the second Sauber of Felipe Nasr and the two disappointing Sahara Force India’s of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez.
Jolyon Palmer was twentieth for Renault and ended the session crawling back to the pits with a puncture, while Rio Haryanto got the better of Pascal Wehrlein in the battle of the Manor Racing drivers at the rear of the field.
Bahrain Grand Prix Free Practice 3 Result
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