Ferrari continued to be the team to beat this weekend as Sebastian Vettel led a 1-2 for the team in final practice going into this afternoon’s qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix.
Ferrari has made a 100% start to proceedings in Russia, topping all three practice sessions.
Vettel’s 1m34.001s put him 0.363s clear of team-mate Raikkonen.
Valtteri Bottas was best of the Mercedes duo and less than a tenth shy of Raikkonen’s benchmark with Lewis Hamilton a further two-tenths off Raikkonen in fourth.
Both teams spent the majority of the session trying to understand what was the best way to approach qualifying. Whether one flying lap then a cool down lap but both teams soon found that more time was being found on a second effort following a cool down effort.
There seems to be a sizeable gap this weekend between the top two teams and Red Bull. Max Verstappen was fifth fastest, a whopping 1.451s off the pace. Williams’ Felipe Massa managed to split the Red Bulls as he continues to extract the maximum from the FW40 in 2017.
Daniel Ricciardo was four-tenths off team-mate Verstappen and finished seventh ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Carlos Sainz and Kevin Magnussen who rounded out the top 10.
Lance Stroll was 11th albeit 1.2s off Massa’s pace in the other Williams. Esteban Ocon was 12th ahead off Daniil Kvyat, Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez and Roman Grosjean.
Jolyon Palmer was unable to complete any running for Renault after the team confirmed an engine change would be required before qualifying.
