Bahrain, FP3: Hamilton seizes control in final practice at Sakhir

Lewis Hamilton went quickest in final practice ahead of qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix eclipsing Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by just seven hundredths of a second. Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mare Nico Rosberg was third, just under four tenths of a second down on the championship leader.

Hamilton’s best time of 1:34.599 was achieved in the final minutes of the session, when the field switched from the harder medium tyre to Pirelli’s quicker soft compound tyre.

In the main, medium tyre-shod part of the session, run in very blustery and dusty conditions, it was Ferrari who held sway, with Kimi Raikkonen quickest ahead of Vettel, with Valtteri Bottas third for Williams ahead of Rosberg. Mercedes, though, were cagey in the opening phase with Hamilton not setting a proper time until almost the halfway mark. Before the soft tyre qualifying simulations the Mercedes pairing were well adrift of the pacesetting Ferraris, with Rosberg four tenths down on Raikkonen and eighth placed Hamilton more than a second in arrears.

The pattern changed 13 minutes before the end of the session, however, when the yellow-banded Pirellis emerged. Rosberg was the first of the Mercedes drivers to show his hand, the German immediately vaulting to the top of the timesheet, going 2.4s quicker on the option rubber. His best time was three tenths slower than his FP2 performance run and the German’s time was quickly beaten by Hamilton, who set the best time of the weekend so far. Vettel then crossed the line to take second.

Fourth place in the session went to Raikkonen, with Williams drivers Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa fifth and sixth respectively. Pastor Maldonado continued his good work this weekend for Lotus by taking seventh place, the same spot he managed in FP2. The Venezuelan also ran as high as fifth during the medium-tyre runs.

Behind him, Daniel Ricciardo finished eighth in another tricky session for Red Bull Racing. With the team concerned about power unit reliability neither of its drivers appeared until halfway through the session. Ricciardo abandoned his first flying lap after a nervous moment but thereafter found his rhythm and in the soft tyre phase set a best time of 1:36.335, almost 1.8 seconds down on Hamilton’s P1 benchmark. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sauber’s Felipe Nasr completing the top 10.

It was a difficult session for Ricciardo’s Red Bull team-mate Daniil Kvyat too. Midway through the session the Russian spun at Turn 4 and he car rolled back into the gravel trap were he was beached. A brief red flag period followed as his car was retrieved and brought back to the pit lane.

Kvyat eventually made it back out on circuit in the closing stages and claimed the session’s 12th fastest time, though he was also two seconds adrift of Hamilton.

After a troubled start to the weekend in which he completed just a handful of laps on Friday, Jenson Button logged 14 laps this morning and took his McLaren to an impressive P11. Team-mate Fernando Alonso finished in 16th place.