Nico Rosberg set the fastest time at Marina Bay on free practice 3 before the sun sets completely in Singapore for qualifying. Max Verstappen hung on to 2nd and his hopes for pole. Räikkönen was 3rd behind the Dutch.
A red flag stopped the session after a few minutes due to the debris left by Wehrlein‘s crash, which left him with a broken rear wing. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen reported that “a giant lizard” had crossed the track in front of him. After the first half an hour of the session, Rosberg led ahead of Hamilton, Vettel, Sainz, Kvyat, Räikkönnen, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Bottas and Alonso.
While Rosberg improved his time by 1 second with a new set of ultrasofts, Hamilton went wide for the second time in the same turn and ended P8 with the supersofts. Ricciardo went up to 2nd with the ultrasoft tyre, but found Ocon‘s Manor in one of the corners, so he was 0.5s off. Verstappen took P2 less than a tenth behind Rosberg, while Räikkönen went right ahead of Ricciardo, also 0.5s off. Vettel was 5th 2 tenths behind his teammate. Behind him, Hülkenberg, Kvyat, Hamilton, Sainz and Bottas completed the top 10.