Yas Marina, FP3: Rosberg tops final practice in Abu Dhabi

Nico Rosberg climbed to the top of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix timesheet for the first time in final practice, beating title rival Lewis Hamilton by three tenths of a second.

Hamilton was marginally quicker than his Mercedes team-mate in the opening sessions but in the final hour-long practice period before qualifying Rosberg deposed the Briton with impressive pace on the supersoft options tyre.

Rosberg set purple, fastest times through the flowing first sector and on the long straights of sector two but crucially as the winding final sector seemed to cause problems for everyone on the option tyre, Rosberg lost less time than his championship rival. He ended the session with a best time of 1:41.424. Hamilton did not complete a final flyer and ended the hour 0.369 down on the German.

Mercedes’ closest challenger in the session was Williams for whom Feipe Massa was third quickest, though he finished a full second adrift of Hamilton’s benchmark.

Fernando Alonso who completed his running in the first 35 minutes of the session, finished fourth, two tenths off Massa’s time. Alonso had been sidelined for almost all of the second practice session and it appeared he was keen to make up lost time amid concerns that the problems might reoccur. He ran for just eight laps in the session, using both tyre compounds, before returning to the Ferarri garage where work continued on his car.

Behind the Spaniard Sebastian Vettel was fifth for Red Bull Racing ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button and the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo. Valtteri Bottas was eighth for Williams and the top 10 order was completed by Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat and the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.