F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Hamilton edges Rosberg in close FP3

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of final practice for the Russian Grand Prix, with the two Mercedes drivers separated by just 0.068s.

The defending champion took top spot on his final flying lap in the session having struggled to put a clean lap together on his first attempt. With Nico Rosberg so close behind, it throws up the prospect of a straight fight between the Mercedes pair for pole position.

Ferrari had a more productive session after Sebastian Vettel's problems in FP2, with Vettel carrying out plenty of long running as he managed 28 laps in the hour-long session. With the most mileage, Vettel also ended up with the third fastest time but was 0.6s slower than Hamilton as Ferrari is left with a big gap to try and close in qualifying.

Kimi Raikkonen was fourth but a further 0.7s behind his team-mate, with the Williams pair of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas just 0.2s further back. Max Verstappen, Jenson Button, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez rounded out the top ten, with Daniel Riciardo the lead Red Bull in 11th but over two seconds slower than Hamilton.

Q1 looks set to be an exciting fight between a number of teams, with Daniil Kvyat in 13th just 0.8s quicker than Felipe Nasr who was slowest overall in FP3. Sauber, Manor, Renault and Haas all look set to fight for a place in Q2 this afternoon.

Turn 13 proved to be the most difficult corner during the final hour of practice, with numerous drivers running wide. The corner requires braking while turning slightly left before a tight right-hander, and Perez was first to go straight on, failing to turn around cleanly and needing to be pushed backwards by marshals before rejoining.

Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean all also went straight on at the same corner, highlighting how easy it will be for drivers to make mistakes in qualifying.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:36.403	17
02	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:36.471	22
03	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:37.007	28
04	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:37.727	14
05	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:37.918	16
06	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:37.985	16
07	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:38.133	22
08	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:38.260	14
09	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:38.465	25
10	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:38.542	18
11	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:38.622	23
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:38.633	12
13	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:39.047	15
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:39.162	16
15	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:39.230	18
16	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:39.238	16
17	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:39.239	15
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:39.589	19
19	Rio Haryanto	Manor	1:39.599	19
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:39.663	18
21	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:39.740	23
22	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:39.898	19

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.