Lewis Hamilton was fastest in a disrupted final free practice session ahead of the 2018 British Grand Prix.
The hour long session was red flagged just 15 minutes in when a suspension failure caused Brendon Hartley to fly into the wall at the end of the Wellington Straight. The left front suspension failed as soon as the Toro Rosso driver hit the brakes and he couldn’t slow before running into the gravel trap, flipping, and hitting the barriers.
Hartley was able to walk away from the incident, but the severe damage to his Toro Rosso means he might miss qualifying.
When the session restarted with 30 minutes on the clock, only five drivers had set a lap time. Kimi Raikkonen was top of the order, ahead of Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen, Romain Grosjean, and Pierre Gasly.
Gasly wouldn’t head back out as the Toro Rosso mechanics worked to make sure a similar failure wouldn’t affect the Frenchman’s car and he ended the morning 19th.
Raikkonen and Hamilton spent the remainder of the session swapping times at the top of the order, but a 1m26.722s from Hamilton in the closing stages of the session put the Brit just out of reach. He ended the session less than a tenth of a second faster than Raikkonen.
Valtteri Bottas took third quickest, ahead of Vettel, who’s FP3 was ended early due to an issue with his neck.
The Saubers of Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson had been running fifth and sixth in the second half of the session, before the Red Bull and Haas drivers found improvements. Leclerc managed to remain seventh quickest, behind Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, but Ericsson dropped back to 10th behind Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean.
Force India’s Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez finished just outside the top 10 in 11th and 12th, ahead of Fernando Alonso, Nico Hulkenberg, and Carlos Sainz.
Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin finished 16th and 17th, just ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne.
