Sebastian Vettel was fastest on a rain-soaked track for the final practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix weekend.
Running had been limited and there was little action until about halfway through the session when the rain stopped and gave the track a chance to form a dry line.
It was on the intermediate tyres that Vettel set his fastest lap, 1:57.351, with Valtteri Bottas in P2 seven-tenths off that pace.
With a 100% chance of rain all day the final practise session was a good opportunity for teams to try an optimum set up for qualifying, which reverts back to its 2015 format this weekend. However, some teams took that to be a reason to save their wet tyres and did not set a flying lap, restricting their cars to a few installations laps to check the cars and tweak the set-up.
Neither of the two Mercedes set a time, nor did the McLarens, Red Bulls, or Haas’ Romain Grosjean. Marcus Ericsson had a hydraulic issue that kept him in the garage for most of the session. The Sauber mechanics did an amazing job to get him out before the end of the session but he did not have enough time to set a flying lap, only completing the necessary checks.
The first half an hour of the session saw limited track activity. With the rain still falling none of the teams wanted to risk damaging the cars so close to qualifying. Once the rain stopped the drivers started heading out on the full wet tyres to get some track time in the session. Kimi Räikkönen was the first to set a flying lap, with a time of just over two minutes. Daniil Kvyat had a couple of attempts to set a time but both times he ran wide, going off the track and ruining his lap.
Jolyon Palmer’s session was stopped when he picked up a puncture with about 20 minutes of practice left. It is unknown if the Brit simply ran off the track and picked up the puncture or if it was a similar issue that stopped teammate Magnussen in yesterday’s first practice session. Whatever the issue was Renault felt that the issue either would not repeat or had been resolved as Palmer returned to the track to set the sixth fastest time of the session.
Sergio Perez was third fastest out of the 15 drivers that set times, with Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz P4. Esteban Gutierrez, Palmer, Kevin Magnussen and Pascal Wehrlein were the only other finishers under the two-minute mark. Max Verstappen – who only used the full wet tyres through the session – and Nico Hulkenberg rounded off the top ten.
Qualifying is predicted to be wet so it will be interesting to see if the drivers who did not set lap times to save tyres have chosen a strategy that will pay off. With Vettel comfortably fastest he will be one to watch as the drivers race for pole position.
