Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRace weekend

Hamilton edges Rosberg in FP3 despite spin

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in the final practice session ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix despite a disjointed morning for the world champion at Interlagos.

Early in the session Hamilton stopped on track with gearbox concerns, saying he had lost gears before restarting and returning to the garage. Then on a later run on medium tyres he suffered a spin at Turn 11, sliding backwards in to the run-off area.

However, Hamilton managed to recover to set the fastest time on the soft tyre qualifying runs, getting the better of team-mate Nico Rosberg to the tune of 0.123s. Rosberg was still a further half second clear of Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari as Mercedes showed more impressive pace on Saturday.

Fourth was Kimi Raikkonen but the second Ferrari was over a second adrift of Hamilton's time, while Raikkonen's fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas finished the session fifth, just 0.01s clear of Nico Hulkenberg's Force India.

In a competitive session behind the leading two teams, Romain Grosjean was seventh fastest ahead of Sergio Perez, Pastor Maldonado and Max Verstappen, with all three within a quarter of a second of Bottas. Amid a sombre mood in the paddock, Grosjean was sporting the French flag on his arm following the attacks on Paris on Friday night.

Having looked competitive on Friday, Red Bull slipped back in the final session with Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat only finishing 11th and 13th respectively, sandwiching Felipe Massa in the second Williams. There were a number of lock-ups during the session with the track low on grip following heavy overnight rain, but only Grosjean going Hamilton on going off as he had an excursion at Turn 6 in the closing moments.

Fernando Alonso recovered from his lack of running in FP2 to end the session in 14th place. While the Spaniard was only half a second slower than Bottas in fifth, McLaren is likely to face a battle to get both cars in to Q2 with Jenson Button ending FP3 in 18th place and the team rarely able to make a step forward in qualifying.

Following three dry practice sessions, the teams will be keeping an eye on the weather ahead of qualifying with Thunderstorms forecast for some stage on Saturday afternoon.

AS IT HAPPENED: Brazilian Grand Prix FP3

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:12.070	16
02	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:12.193	19
03	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:12.760	19
04	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:13.096	20
05	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:13.335	25
06	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:13.345	19
07	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:13.437	19
08	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:13.506	18
09	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:13.534	20
10	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:13.548	21
11	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:13.572	23
12	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:13.742	24
13	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:13.829	17
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:13.850	19
15	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:13.959	23
16	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:14.185	23
17	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:14.288	22
18	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:14.445	17
19	Will Stevens	Manor	1:16.671	15
20	Alexander Rossi	Manor	1:17.059	15

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.