Rosberg, Hamilton and Vettel split by 0.147s in FP3

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Nico Rosberg topped the times at the end of final practice for the Spanish Grand Prix as the top three drivers were covered by 0.147s.

Having topped the times in FP2, Rosberg remained fastest despite being unable to improve his time with a late lap on soft tyres. Rosberg posted a 1:23.078 in the first half of the session and was then hit with a sensor problem when heading out for a final run on soft tyres which prevented another qualifying simulation.

The problem was quickly rectified and Rosberg returned to the track, but his initial time was enough to stay fastest as team-mate Lewis Hamilton was 0.126s further back with his attempt. Sebastian Vettel's final lap saw him go third, 0.021s off Hamilton's time. The German had been fastest overall in the first two sectors but lost half a second to Rosberg in the final part of the lap.

Only Vettel set a representative time for Ferrari, with Kimi Raikkonen a second off the pace despite posting the fastest first sector when starting his attempt. Raikkonen then hit traffic in the final sector as he followed a Manor through the fast final corner.

Max Verstappen impressed with the fourth quickest time, 0.6s adrift of Rosberg's time and 0.1s ahead of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. While the two team-mates appear closely matched, Red Bull also holds a clear advantage over Williams - with Valtteri Bottas seventh - heading in to qualifying.

Sergio Perez, Daniil Kvyat and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten, with Kvyat 0.2s faster than team-mate Carlos Sainz in the final practice session.

There was a slightly unnecessary incident late in the session between Romain Grosjean and one of his former team's drivers in the shape of Kevin Magnussen. Grosjean was attempting to pass the Renault around the outside at Turn 5 but Magnussen wanted to retain track position and sped up before running that Haas out of road on the exit of the corner.

AS IT HAPPENED: Spanish Grand Prix - FP3

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Chris Medland's 2016 Spanish Grand Prix preview

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:23.078	15
02	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:23.204	11
03	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:23.225	16
04	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:23.719	10
05	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:23.816	9
06	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:24.110	13
07	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:24.356	14
08	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:24.472	15
09	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:24.553	13
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:24.555	13
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:24.585	15
12	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:24.621	15
13	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:24.695	21
14	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:24.981	13
15	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:25.051	13
16	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:25.100	12
17	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:25.130	17
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:25.376	13
19	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:25.383	22
20	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:25.401	24
21	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:26.097	13
22	Rio Haryanto	Manor	1:26.251	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.