Practice report
Formula 1 Bahrain GP
Bahrain GP: Raikkonen leads Red Bull drivers in FP3
Kimi Raikkonen's strong form ahead of Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying continued as the Ferrari driver set the pace again in Saturday practice.
Scott Mitchell
Edited: Apr 7, 2018, 1:46 PM
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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.
ClaDriverChassisEngineLapsTimeGap 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
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