Bahrain GP: Raikkonen leads Red Bull drivers in FP3

Raikkonen, who was quickest on Friday, enjoyed an advantage of almost half a second in FP3 as his rivals failed to produce representative laptimes.

Teams were hesitant to hit the track given qualifying and Sunday's race will be held in different conditions, and it took 20 minutes for Carlos Sainz to end the wait for a laptime.

Sainz's 1m33.893s was never going to be a benchmark that stood for long, and Valtteri Bottas's supersoft-shod Mercedes quickly displaced the Renault with a 1m30.781s.

Lewis Hamilton could not better his teammate's time and lapped just under two tenths slower, allowing Red Bull's Max Verstappen to nip between the two Mercedes on soft tyres just after the half-hour mark.

Ferrari came to the fore with 20 minutes of the session remaining.

Sebastian Vettel was first to strike, emerging from the pits after repair work to fix the right-hand side bargeboard's lower fixing, which he had broken on a kerb.

The four-time champion used supersofts to edge just ahead of Bottas on a 1m30.719s, but with yesterday's best times being in the 1m29s there always looked like room for improvement.

Raikkonen did not take long to deliver on that, setting the best time in all three sectors to end up on a 1m29.868s.

His effort was marginally slower than his Friday benchmark but enough to put him well clear as the rest of the order was only settled in the final minutes.

Track temperature fell from 40C to 36C by the end of the session, which is when most of the field posted their best times.

Hamilton looked to have shaded Vettel and Bottas for best-of-the rest honours, despite running very wide exiting the final corner, but Verstappen snatched second in the final five minutes.

Verstappen then almost collided with Raikkonen at Turn 1 when the Finn emerged from the pitlane just after Verstappen had completed his flying lap.

Daniel Ricciardo replicated his teammate's late charge by lapping 0.06s slower moments later, which bumped Hamilton – whose five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change has been confirmed – to fourth.

Vettel and Bottas did not return to the track after setting their respective bests, but the Renaults of Nico Hulkenberg and Sainz left it late to claim seventh and eighth.

Pierre Gasly continued Toro Rosso-Honda's strong weekend with the ninth-best time, ahead of Fernando Alonso's McLaren.

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	15	1'29.868
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	8	1'30.393	0.525
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	8	1'30.452	0.584
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	14	1'30.691	0.823
5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	8	1'30.719	0.851
6	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	Mercedes	16	1'30.781	0.913
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	Renault	11	1'31.144	1.276
8	Carlos Sainz	Renault	Renault	12	1'31.200	1.332
9	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	Honda	18	1'31.438	1.570
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Renault	13	1'31.445	1.577
11	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso	Honda	18	1'31.460	1.592
12	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari	14	1'31.513	1.645
13	Esteban Ocon	Force India	Mercedes	17	1'31.554	1.686
14	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	14	1'31.564	1.696
15	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	Ferrari	14	1'31.737	1.869
16	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	17	1'31.859	1.991
17	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	Renault	14	1'31.860	1.992
18	Charles Leclerc	Sauber	Ferrari	19	1'32.047	2.179
19	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams	Mercedes	11	1'32.463	2.595
20	Lance Stroll	Williams	Mercedes	12	1'32.865	2.997