» Game on in Bahrain as Vettel tops FP3

Sebastian Vettel has led a Ferrari one-two in the final practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix, with both of the Prancing Horse’s cars almost half-a-second quicker than the pace-setting Mercedes which had previously dominated Friday’s practice running.

Vettel’s teammate Kimi Räikkönen enjoyed a fair amount of time at the top of the timesheets during the soft tyre runs, outpacing the Williams of Valtteri Bottas on the super soft tyre by one-tenth of a second and finishing the session just four one-hundredths of a second off Vettel’s best time.

Friday’s timesheet topper Nico Rosberg was third-fastest in the Mercedes, 0.056 seconds quicker than teammate Lewis Hamilton who is still yet to top Rosberg in a session this weekend. The pair was over a second off their own pace in yesterday’s FP2 session, which was run in cooler track conditions.

Despite lacking pace during the warmer temperatures of practice, Rosberg’s best time in FP2 was sixth-tenths of a second faster than Vettel’s FP3 effort.

Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutiérrez starred for Haas as both drivers finished inside the top ten. Grosjean ran as high as fifth position until he was demoted by Bottas late in the session, while Gutiérrez finished two-tenths of a second behind Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat in eighth.

McLaren’s reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne spent over half of the session in the garage due to an oil leak which had to be cleaned up while his MP4-31’s tanks were refilled. The Belgian completed a handful of laps on the soft tyre before jumping onto the super soft, where he finished in fourteenth position, just 0.041 seconds off teammate Jenson Button.

Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz both had a troubled session, spending majority of the hour of running in the last two positions as they stuck with the slower Soft compound tyre. The Toro Rosso pair completed 20 laps each – the most of any runners in the one-hour session – and eventually moved into the lower midfield.

Force India also only ran the Soft tyre, with Nico Hülkenberg and Sergio Pérez finishing in 18th and 19th positions respectively.

2016 FORMULA 1 GULF AIR BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX – FREE PRACTICE 3 RESULTS
	Driver	Team / Entry	Result	Laps
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF16-H	1:31.683	22
2.	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari SF16-H	+ 0.040	13
3.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 W07 Hybrid	+ 0.421	18
4.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 W07 Hybrid	+ 0.477	14
5.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW38	+ 0.992	18
6.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Ferrari VF-16	+ 1.399	14
7.	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing Tag Heuer RB12	+ 1.430	10
8.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Haas F1 Ferrari VF-16	+ 1.654	14
9.	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW38	+ 1.680	18
10.	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing Tag Heuer RB12	+ 1.836	20
11.	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C35	+ 1.886	16
12.	Kevin Magnussen	Renault Sport F1 Team RS16	+ 1.934	9
13.	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	+ 2.021	12
14.	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	+ 2.061	11
15.	Max Verstappen	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR11	+ 2.095	20
16.	Carlos Sainz Jr	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR11	+ 2.320	20
17.	Felipe Nasr	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C35	+ 2.330	15
18.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sahara Force India Mercedes VJM09	+ 2.445	16
19.	Sergio Pérez	Sahara Force India Mercedes VJM09	+ 2.598	15
20.	Jolyon Palmer	Renault Sport F1 Team RS16	+ 2.741	9
21.	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing Mercedes MRT5	+ 3.863	15
22.	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor Racing Mercedes MRT5	+ 4.041	16