Hamilton heads Vettel in closer FP3 at Monza

Lewis Hamilton completed a clean sweep of practice sessions at the Italian Grand Prix as Ferrari closed the gap in FP3 at Monza.

With Mercedes enjoying a large advantage in FP1, Sebastian Vettel had already been closer in the second session before continuing that trend on Saturday morning. With damp conditions resulting in slower lap times than Friday, Hamilton set the pace with a 1:24.544 but had Vettel for close company as the Ferrari was just 0.26s adrift.

Nico Rosberg was third but 0.3s slower than his Mercedes team-mate, while Williams made its expected improvement to end the session fourth and fifth with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa respectively. Pastor Maldonado finished FP3 in sixth place for Lotus after a late lap on the drying circuit, with Kimi Raikkonen highlighting the closer nature of the session in seventh by setting a time 0.7s slower than Hamilton.

Heavy thunderstorms overnight had left the track damp at the start of Saturday's running, with installation laps taking place on intermediate tyres. The Toro Rosso pair of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were keen to set times in the tricky conditions, but with the sun drying the track quickly most drivers waited until half way through the session before taking on slicks.

With Sergio Perez finishing eighth fastest ahead of Marcus Ericsson and Romain Grosjean, there was no Renault-powered car in the top ten. Daniel Ricciardo suffered more reliability issues, with his engineer telling him not to change gear as he came to a halt at the second chicane, ending his running with 15 minutes remaining.

Ricciardo ended the session slowest as a result, with Will Stevens taking advantage of the conditions to post the 15th quickest time, just behind the two McLarens and ahead of Verstappen, Daniil Kvyat, Sainz, Roberto Merhi and Ricciardo.

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