Mercedes AMG drivers have dominated the entire session of practice with Lewis Hamilton setting the fastest time followed by his teammate Nico Rosberg and Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel. Carlos Sainz has done a very good job standing behind the two Red Bull and Roberto Merhi managed to beat his teammate.
The day started with a glorious sunshine, 18 °C and 4 °C ambient temperature on track. Only two minutes had passed of the start of these third free practice, and McLaren’s Spanish driver Fernando Alonso, was stopped in Turn 4, due to a mechanical breakdown. Many problems for the English team that continues through difficult times.
The session progressed and Mercedes drivers were at the front positions with Lewis Hamilton setting the pace of the session, followed by his teammate and the two Ferrari drivers, Vettel and Raikonnen respectively. Williams drivers were in fifth and sixth to one second of the time marked by the British driver, Lewis Hamilton.
On the other hand, Carlos Sainz was placed in tenth position ahead of his teammate, and Roberto Merhi with Manor getting some laps standing in penultimate position, also ahead of his teammate.
With 20 minutes, the teams have begun to use the softer compounds for the first race simulations of this practice session. But the standings has not changed much. The Mercedes have continued to dominate with Hamilton and his fastest time of 1.37.615, followed by Rosberg, two tenths behind. In third and fourth place were located both Ferraris, Vettel and Raikonnen to 7/10 of the Mercedes.
With 20 minutes to go the two Redbull were followed by Carlos Sainz setting the seventh fastest time. The next 8 drivers were separated by just half a second.
Sainz said at the end of the session: “We have a better car than yesterday, the goal is to get into Q3 and we are very satisfied with the work done. There are too many drivers together in that part of the grid, we will see how it goes in the qualy”.
