Vettel fastest as weather limits FP3 running

Sebastian Vettel was fastest in final practice for the Chinese Grand Prix as heavy rain limited running.

Thunderstorms in the morning saw heavy rain continuing in to the start of FP3, with no running taking place in the first 15 minutes as teams waited for conditions to improve. The rain did relent to allow wet tyre running at first before drivers switched to intermediates just after the half-hour mark.

Vettel was one of the last drivers to appear in the session but duly went fastest on his only run on intermediate tyres. The German needed just one timed lap to post a 1:57.351 which eventually saw him head the field by 0.7s.

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Valtteri Bottas was second quickest with Williams one of the busier teams having traditionally struggled in wet conditions. Bottas was 0.6s clear of Sergio Perez in the Force India, while Carlos Sainz was a further 0.1s back in fourth but set his best lap late in the session on used full wet tyres.

While Haas struggled in the dry on Friday, Esteban Gutierrez was fifth quickest in the wet, albeit 2.1s adrift of Vettel. At least Gutierrez managed to complete seven laps, which was one more than his total from Friday having been hit by reliability problems in both FP1 and FP2.

The two Renault’s of Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen were sixth and seventh fastest respectively, with Palmer suffering a right rear puncture on full wets. Pascal Wehrlein, Max Verstappen and Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top ten.

The conditions saw eight drivers fail to set lap times, with both McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes drivers not registering. Romain Grosjean also didn’t set a time after spinning at Turn 10 early in the session, though he was the only driver to actually spin despite a number of others going wide at Turn 6.

Every driver completed at least one lap as the conditions are expected to continue in to this afternoon’s qualifying session, though the forecast for the race remains dry at present.

AS IT HAPPENED: Chinese Grand Prix – FP3

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