Ferrari stayed in front in the third practice session of the 2018 Formula 1 Singapore GP as Sebastian Vettel edged out Kimi Raikkonen with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in third.
After his brush with the wall in FP2, Vettel was out early in FP3 on Saturday evening alongwith Raikkonen on the hypersoft compound to set some quick laps straight after completing the installation laps.
Vettel headed Raikkonen in the initial run and it stayed like that with the German posting a 1m38.054s lap time to Raikkonen’s 1m38.416s. Title rival Hamilton was half a second down on Vettel in third with a 1m38.558s lap time.
Mercedes’ teammate Valtteri Bottas (1m38.603s) slotted in fourth as the two teams tried out opposite strategies ahead of their qualifying run and the Sunday’s race – with the German team focusing on the soft compound more.
Red Bull Racing drivers did not enjoy the session with Daniel Ricciardo (1m39.186s) in fifth leading Max Verstappen (1m39.265s) as the latter had a frustrating times especially with the Renault power unit.
The Dutchman did not get clear laps in the end to go with the balance issues. Haas’ Romain Grosjean (1m39.747s) ended up as the best of the rest in seventh from Racing Point Force India’s Esteban Ocon (1m40.073s).
The Force India driver had a small run-in with Grosjean in the pitlane but nothing major happened. A late last lap helped Sergio Perez (1m40.231s) to ninth as McLaren’s Fernando Alonso (1m40.254s) rounded out the Top 10.
Perez’s improvement pushed Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg (1m40.450s) outside the Top 10 with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen (1m40.559s) in 12th from Renault’s Carlos Sainz (1m40.591s) ahead of the leading Toro Rosso of Pierre Gasly (1m40.686s).
It was an improvement from McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne (1m40.798s) as well to be 15th from Sauber’s Charles Leclerc (1m40.915s) and Brendon Hartley (1m41.562s) in what was a difficult run for the Sauber team.
The Williams pair Sergey Sirotkin (1m41.884s) in 18th and Lance Stroll (1m24.220s) in 20th sandwiched Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson (1m41.953s).
