» Räikkönen leads Ferrari 1-2 in FP3

Kimi Räikkönen and Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel have once again showed that the Italian team will threaten for pole position after claiming a 1-2 in final practice for the Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix.

After Mercedes seemingly dominated both Friday practice sessions with their own 1-2 performances, it was the turn of the red cars to move to the top of the timesheets.

This time it was 2007 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen who claimed overall honours. The Finn clocked the fastest lap of the weekend so far – an expected result given the FIA’s decision to lengthen the DRS zone along the pit straight – with his 1:20.214 time on Pirelli’s Soft tyres edging out Vettel by just under a quarter of a second.

Once again, it wasn’t a completely incident-free session for the Italian team, with Vettel suffering another stoppage when his team detected a telemetry issue while the German was in the pit lane.

Third-fastest went to Friday pace-setter Lewis Hamilton, who completed the bulk of the Mercedes team’s running. Teammate Valtteri Bottas was fourth-quickest, managing just seven laps in the session after his mechanics were forced to fix a water leak his team had detected while making repairs to his Mercedes power unit’s electrics.

That necessitated a last-minute switch to his initial, older power unit, however he was therefore held up getting onto the track during the session.

Red Bull Racing maintained its ‘best of the rest’ mantle by locking out fifth and sixth places on the timesheets, with defending Spanish Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen edging teammate Daniel Ricciardo. The duo was still 0.8 seconds and a full second off the leading pace, however.

Renault’s Nico Hülkenberg hustled his RS17 into an encouraging seventh place to finish atop the tight midfield battle, ahead of Williams’ Felipe Massa and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz Jr.

Crowd favourite Fernando Alonso put in a majestic late effort to haul his McLaren Honda MCL32 into the top-ten, some seven-tenths of a second quicker than teammate Stoffel Vandoorne, who only managed to outpace Sauber’s Pascal Wehrlein in the final reckoning.

The Haas F1 Team brought in a second new floor design to install on Romain Grosjean’s car, and the Frenchman put his first mileage with the car’s new underbody aerodynamics to good use by going eleventh-fastest. Teammate Kevin Magnussen – who has run the floor design all weekend – was one-tenth of a second behind in twelfth place.

The Force India duo of Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon were thirteenth and fourteenth-fastest, ahead of the second Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat.

Marcus Ericsson continued to lead the Sauber team’s charge with an encouraging sixteenth place, edging out Williams rookie Lance Stroll and Renault’s Jolyon Palmer.

Marcus Ericsson again led Sauber’s charge in 16th, in front of Williams rookie Lance Stroll, who reported poor grip, Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and the aforementioned Vandoorne.

Saturday’s qualifying session in Barcelona will begin at 14:00 local time (GMT +2).

FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA PIRELLI 2017 – FREE PRACTICE 3 RESULTS
	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Tyre	Laps
1.	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari SF70H	1:20.214		20
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF70H	1:20.456		7
3.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W08	1:20.595		12
4.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W08	1:20.868		7
5.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing Tag Heuer RB13	1:21.025		14
6.	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing Tag Heuer RB13	1:21.249		15
7.	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault Sport F1 Team RS17	1:21.670		13
8.	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW40	1:21.746		19
9.	Carlos Sainz Jr	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR12	1:21.835		19
10.	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MCL32	1:22.093		16
11.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team Ferrari VF-17	1:22.128		21
12.	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team Ferrari VF-17	1:22.214		12
13.	Sergio Pérez	Sahara Force India Mercedes VJM10	1:22.237		19
14.	Esteban Ocon	Sahara Force India Mercedes VJM10	1:22.297		22
15.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR12	1:22.391		15
16.	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C36	1:22.513		20
17.	Lance Stroll	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW40	1:22.574		19
18.	Jolyon Palmer	Renault Sport F1 Team RS17	1:22.755		13
19.	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren-Honda MCL32	1:22.853		15
20.	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C36	1:22.974		19