Rosberg, Hamilton and Ricciardo covered by 0.099s in FP3

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Red Bull and Ferrari closed the gap to Mercedes in FP3 for the German Grand Prix, with the 0.164s covering all three teams.

Nico Rosberg was again quickest after an improvement on his final flying lap on supersoft tyres - set before Ferrari and Red Bull ran - with the German going 0.057s faster than team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton failed to improve on his final time, but the fact that both drivers were 0.2s slower than Rosberg's FP1 time suggests there is more to come from Mercedes.

One concern for the team emerged early in the session when Hamilton was released in front of Romain Grosjean in the pit lane, with the stewards investigating the incident. Hamilton has been called to see the stewards at 1230 local time, and the championship leader is currently just one reprimand away from an automatic ten-place grid penalty.

Regardless, Red Bull and Ferrari threatened during the session, with Daniel Ricciardo third quickest, 0.099s slower than Rosberg. Ricciardo set the fastest middle sector of the session as he threatened, with Ferrari and Williams also quicker than Mercedes in sector two.

Ricciardo was last of the front runners to complete his lap having spent much of the first half of the session in the garage, while Raikkonen ran shortly before the Australian and was fourth fastest overall, 0.164s off Rosberg.

Like Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel also failed to improve with his second attempt on supersofts, with the Ferrari driver finishing FP3 0.366s adrift. Max Verstappen was sixth and also within half a second of the best time, while the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa were seventh and eighth respectively.

Fernando Alonso kept McLaren in the top ten as he edged out Nico Hulkenberg by 0.1s, with a very close battle emerging for the final spots in Q3. Alonso's team-mate Jenson Button had a less successful session as he completed just six laps. Button had to have a tiny piece of carbon removed from his eye after FP2 on Friday but was hampered by reliability issues on Saturday morning which cost him more track time.

Only Grosjean completed less mileage than Button, with the Haas driver managing just four laps before a gearbox issue saw him go off at Turn 3. Grosjean returned to the pits where Haas decided a gearbox change was needed, leaving the team with a busy two hours before qualifying.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:15.738	16
02	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:15.795	19
03	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:15.837	13
04	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:15.902	16
05	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:16.104	20
06	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:16.182	23
07	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:16.400	28
08	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:16.630	26
09	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:16.916	11
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:16.972	16
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:17.028	20
12	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:17.066	10
13	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:17.160	17
14	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:17.227	19
15	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:17.351	9
16	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:17.473	23
17	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:17.685	19
18	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:18.057	24
19	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:18.093	6
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:18.270	24
21	Rio Haryanto	Manor	1:18.272	18
22	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:25.160	4

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.