A last minute dry-tyre lap put Sebastian Vettel top in the final practice session ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
Vettel was one of just three drivers to set a lap time on slick tyres, along with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson. His 1m26.067s lap, his final lap of the session, put him 2.432s ahead of Raikkonen in second. Ericsson was a further half a second back.
Max Verstappen was the fastest man on intermediate tyres. The Red Bull’s had shown strong pace in the wet throughout the session, but it wasn’t until the final five minutes that Verstappen jumped back to the top of the times, despite being told by his engineer “no heroics are required”. He ended the session with a 1m31.60s, 1.5s faster than Carlos Sainz Jnr in fifth.
Daniel Ricciardo finished sixth, ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton waited until the final half an hour to get into his Mercedes, but had his start time pushed back by an apparent electrical problem that left him unable to pull away from the garage. Mercedes quickly changed his steering wheel and the reigning champion was out. He finished the session 0.051s behind his team-mate.
Lance Stroll’s running was also limited to the second half of the session. A gearbox problem meant Stroll had to wait until the final 15 minutes to leave the pits. He finished the session 14th, just behind team-mate Sergey Sirotkin.
Force India was the only team not to set a lap-time. Both drivers set an install lap in the final 10 minutes of the session but decided against any further running in the unrepresentative conditions.
The McLarens of Stoffel Vandoorne and Fernando Alonso completed the top 10, just ahead of Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley in the Honda powered Toro Rossos.
Romain Grosjean, the first man out on track, finished 15th, followed by Charles Leclerc, Kevin Magnussen, and Nico Hulkenberg.
