Hamilton still on top after FP3

Hamilton didn’t do a lot of running but what he did do was impressively quick. During the early running, where most were on the medium compound Pirellis, the World Champion emerged just over 15 minutes in for his first flying lap, jumping straight to the top of the times with a 1m39.776s.

That time stood until the qualifying simulations started in the second half of the session, but as soon as Hamilton switched to the soft tyres 13 minutes from time he jumped straight back to the top with a 1m37.615s.

That benchmark time proved 0.266s faster than team-mate Nico Rosberg managed, although Hamilton was up by 0.4s at the end of the sector.

Hamilton’s only hiccup in the session was when he was forced to stop due to his seat becoming uncomfortably hot.

Ferrari clinging on

Once again, it was the Ferraris that were second best to the Mercedes – and both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen managed to set qualifying simulations within a second of Hamilton.

Vettel was third quickest, 0.698s behind Hamilton, while Raikkonen was 0.897s arrears of the leading Mercedes.

Brakes continue to worry Red Bull

Brake problems continued to plague the Red Bull drivers throughout the 60-minute session, although Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat were at least best of the rest on pace, finishing fifth and sixth quickest.

However, Kvyat’s session came to a worrying end; in the dying seconds of the session he radioed the team to say he had “lost power”, before crawling back to the pits.

While Carlos Sainz Jr was seventh fastest, and hot on the heels of Kvyat, Valtteri Bottas did manage to split the Toro Rossos by going just over three-hundredths quicker than Max Verstappen.

More problems for Alonso

Fernando Alonso’s session barely lasted 90 seconds, with his McLaren-Honda rolling to a stop with an engine problem on its out-lap.

Jenson Button, meanwhile, did get some decent running and managed to finish 15th fastest, just half a tenth behind the Sauber of Felipe Nasr.

Formula 1 - 2015 Chinese Grand Prix - Free Practice 3

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
01	L. Hamilton	Mercedes	1:37.615		14
02	N. Rosberg	Mercedes	1:37.841	+0.226	16
03	S. Vettel	Ferrari	1:38.313	+0.698	17
04	K. Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:38.512	+0.897	16
05	D. Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:39.020	+1.405	8
06	D. Kvyat	Red Bull	1:39.106	+1.491	14
07	C. Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:39.113	+1.498	17
08	V. Bottas	Williams	1:39.243	+1.628	15
09	M. Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:39.274	+1.659	19
10	R. Grosjean	Lotus	1:39.405	+1.790	14
11	F. Massa	Williams	1:39.410	+1.795	17
12	N. Hülkenberg	Force India	1:39.513	+1.898	14
13	M. Ericsson	Sauber	1:39.559	+1.944	18
14	F. Nasr	Sauber	1:39.591	+1.976	19
15	J. Button	McLaren	1:39.694	+2.079	16
16	P. Maldonado	Lotus	1:39.766	+2.151	16
17	S. Pérez	Force India	1:39.781	+2.166	17
18	W. Stevens	Manor	1:42.928	+5.313	15
19	R. Merhi	Manor	1:44.956	+7.341	9
20	F. Alonso	McLaren	0:00.000		1