Rosberg tops final Singapore practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Singapore, Marina Bay Street Circuit

Just like in Friday's FP2, Nico Rosberg set the fastest time in the final free practice session ahead of qualifying for the Singapore GP. Max Verstappen was again very much on it as well, leaving no room for error from the competition.

That tiny margin for errors is evident from Lewis Hamilton's 8th time. The Mercedes driver once again had trouble completed a trouble free lap on the ultra softs. First, he spun without damage at turn 7 while a bit later, having just set the fastest first sector, he locked up under braking and went onto the escape route in the very same corner.

Kimi Raikkonen was once again the fastest of the two Ferraris in 3rd, followed by Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel. For Ricciardo, it was the first session in which he ran Renault's upgrades. These were exclusively used by Verstappen on Friday, but after verification had now been installed on Ricciardo's Red Bull, as well as on both factory Renault Sport F1 cars. It is believed the upgrade, worth 3 tokens, is ignition related to optimise operation in combination with the new fuel from Total.

Toro Rosso maintained position in 7th and 9th while Valtteri Bottas completed the top 10. Yet again, neither McLaren made it into the top 10, indicating the team may not have found a solution for the lack of grip during Friday's sessions.

Apart from Hamilton's mishaps, Pascal Wehrlein caused a brief red flag after backing into a wall 10 minutes into the session, whereas Romain Grosjean was probably the least happy driver of the day, indicating his Haas was likely the most difficult car he had to drive in the past few years.

The extremely similar ranking order compared to Friday is particularly interesting in light of Pirelli's overnight decision to reduce the minimum rear tyre pressure from 17.5psi to 16.5psi. The fronts retain the 20psi minimum.