FP3: Mercedes comfortably ahead
Having already topped the times on Friday, Mercedes continued to lead the way in third practice at Sochi. Though Ferrari were third and fourth fastest, their performance deficit will leave them wondering what is causing them to lose this much to the silver arrows.
In a session that saw almost all drivers limit themselves to running on the hypersoft tyre, Sebastian Vettel ended up 6 tenths down on Lewis Hamilton, closely followed by Kimi Räikkönen.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen was another 3 tenths further back. Ricciardo, Leclerc, Ocon, Magnussen and Perez completed the top 10.
Pierre Gasly, having been well into the top 10 on Friday, dropped back to 12th. The Frenchman is back with the previous Honda specification engine after the Japanese engine manufacturer decided overnight that a bit more mapping and tuning was needed to make the new power unit work as expected. This work should be done in time for the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix in two weeks time.
Further back, Williams managed to outperform McLaren with both cars, leaving Vandoorne and Alonso at the bottom of the timing sheet.
Results
| Pos. | No. | Driver | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:33.067 | - | 13 |
| 2 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1:33.321 | +0.254s | 16 |
| 3 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1:33.667 | +0.600s | 14 |
| 4 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 1:33.688 | +0.621s | 11 |
| 5 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing Tag Heuer | 1:33.937 | +0.870s | 11 |
| 6 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull Racing Tag Heuer | 1:34.394 | +1.327s | 14 |
| 7 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Sauber Ferrari | 1:34.628 | +1.561s | 15 |
| 8 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Force India Mercedes | 1:34.809 | +1.742s | 16 |
| 9 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas Ferrari | 1:34.820 | +1.753s | 15 |
| 10 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Force India Mercedes | 1:34.916 | +1.849s | 14 |
| 11 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | Renault | 1:34.988 | +1.921s | 13 |
| 12 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda | 1:35.125 | +2.058s | 21 |
| 13 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Haas Ferrari | 1:35.185 | +2.118s | 18 |
| 14 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 1:35.213 | +2.146s | 12 |
| 15 | 9 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber Ferrari | 1:35.370 | +2.303s | 16 |
| 16 | 28 | Brendon Hartley | Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda | 1:36.033 | +2.966s | 22 |
| 17 | 35 | Sergey Sirotkin | Williams Mercedes | 1:36.071 | +3.004s | 16 |
| 18 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Williams Mercedes | 1:36.274 | +3.207s | 20 |
| 19 | 2 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren Renault | 1:36.597 | +3.530s | 14 |
| 20 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren Renault | 1:36.992 | +3.925s | 21 |
