Ferrari takes charge in final practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Spain, Circuit de Catalunya

Having been seriously outpaced on Friday, the Scuderia Ferrari cars were to be found on top of the timesheet at the end of FP3, the final session before qualifying later today. Kimi Räikkonen topped the session and was nearly 4 tenths quicker than yesterday's fastest man, Lewis Hamilton.

Sebastian Vettel was second fastest and Valtteri Bottas fourth, both completing a mere 7 laps. For the latter, it was a rather annoying session, as he only managed to get out on track 8 minutes from the end. Mercedes crew had been working overnight to resolve an electrical issue on his car, only to find a water leak when they re-assembled the power unit. This forced the team to revert Bottas to the power unit he used in the first four races, therefore lacking the updates that were fitted on the second specification he and Hamilton used on Friday.

Red Bull's duo, Verstappen and Ricciardo, were 5th and 6th yet again, in the same order as on Friday. Once more, the gap to the pace setters for the bulls was around a second.

Nico Hulkenberg continued to impress and was 7th fastest for Renault, ahead of Felipe Massa and Carlos Sainz. Fernando Alonso punched back from an extremely disappointing Friday by rounding off the top 10 at the end of the 60-minute session. The Spaniard was however already nearly 2 seconds down on the pace setters, with the cars ranked behind him closely matched.