» Ferrari duo quickest in final practice

Charles Leclerc reclaimed his standing as the fastest man at the Sochi Autodrom, topping the Russian Grand Prix’s final practice session by three-tenths of a second from Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel.

With Leclerc looking likely to claim his fourth consecutive pole position Mercedes struggled to put up a fight, with Lewis Hamilton initially doubtful over the team radio that closing a gap of 1.1 seconds to Leclerc was possible.

Hamilton managed to close the gap to 0.3 seconds by the end of the session, going faster than his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas for the first time this weekend.

After being the fastest in the second practice session, Max Verstappen fought to find pace on his medium Pirelli tyres which Red Bull Racing decided to use for most of the session. A change to softs saw the Dutchman fly over the kerbs coming out of Turn 2, then spin his RB15 at Turn 13, luckily only lighting touching the barriers and avoiding any major damage.

Verstappen tamed his RB15 to finish fifth behind Bottas, although 1.5 seconds off the pace.

Romain Grosjean spilt the Red Bulls and took sixth for the Haas F1 Team ahead of Alexander Albon who, like teammate Verstappen, will drop five grid places thanks to Honda power unit changes.

McLaren’s Lando Norris claimed ninth behind Renault’s Nico Hülkenberg with Kevin Magnussen rounding out the top ten in the second Haas.

Home fans will be disappointed with Daniil Kvyat suffering his second engine issue of the weekend, seeing his Torro Rosso pulling over 21 minutes into the session. The Russian driver, who is already due to start the race from the back of the grid due to power unit updates, is unlikely to run in qualifying to receive a new engine for Sunday.

The forecasted rain is yet to make an appearance, perhaps it will arrive in time for qualifying.

FORMULA 1 VTB RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX 2019 – FREE PRACTICE SESSION 3494
	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap621	Laps
1.	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari SF90	1:32.733		14
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF90	1:33.049	+ 0.316	15
3.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG Motorsport W10	1:33.129	+ 0.396	19
4.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes-AMG Motorsport W10	1:33.354	+ 0.621	18
5.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing RB15	1:34.227	+ 1.494	12
6.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team VF-19	1:34.308	+ 1.575	17
7.	Alexander Albon	Red Bull Racing RB15	1:34.371	+ 1.638	21
8.	Nico Hülkenberg	Renault F1 Team RS19	1:34.421	+ 1.688	13
9.	Lando Norris	McLaren F1 Team MCL34	1:34.527	+ 1.794	15
10.	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team VF-19	1:34.546	+ 1.813	15
11.	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda STR14	1:34.564	+ 1.831	16
12.	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault F1 Team RS19	1:34.586	+ 1.853	14
13.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren F1 Team MCL34	1:34.607	+ 1.874	18
14.	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo Racing C38	1:34.766	+ 2.033	15
15.	Sergio Pérez	Racing Point F1 Team RP19	1:34.860	+ 2.127	7
16.	Lance Stroll	Racing Point F1 Team RP19	1:34.898	+ 2.165	16
17.	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo Racing C38	1:35.714	+ 2.981	19
18.	George Russell	ROKiT Williams Racing FW42	1:36.011	+ 3.278	18
19.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda STR14	1:36.081	+ 3.348	4
20.	Robert Kubica	ROKiT Williams Racing FW42	1:36.942	+ 4.209	19