Raikkonen leads Ferrari 1-2 final Malaysia F1 practice

Kimi Raikkonen threw his hat into the ring as a possible contender for Formula 1 victory in Malaysia by closing out practice at Sepang at the top of the timesheets, beating Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel.

After finishing second behind Vettel in FP2, Raikkonen rose to the head of the field in final practice with a best time of 1:31.880 on the super-soft tyre, finishing 0.162 seconds clear of the sister Ferrari SF70H car.

Red Bull continued to look second-best in Malaysia as it did on Friday, with Daniel Ricciardo taking third overall, two-tenths of a second shy of Raikkonen at the head of the field.

Teammate Max Verstappen took P6 after leaving it late to complete a qualifying simulation, finishing half a second back from his teammate, and also made contact with Jolyon Palmer at the final corner after the chequered flag.

In a bid to remedy its Friday practice woes, Mercedes ran split aerodynamic setups on Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas' cars, the latter taking the new-spec package brought to Sepang. Bottas finished as the faster of the two in P4, albeit only two-tenths of a second clear of Hamilton in P5.

It wasn't all plain sailing for Ferrari in FP3, though, as Vettel was told to slow his car and return to the pits in the final few minutes due to an apparent problem.

Force India took seventh and ninth with Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon, while Williams showed signs of fighting further up the order than it did in Singapore by getting Massa into eighth place. Stoffel Vandoorne completed the top 10 for McLaren.

Following Friday's delays and stoppages, FP3 offered the teams a full hour of clean running, with Haas getting Romain Grosjean out first-thing despite spending most of the night repairing his car after the crash on Friday.

Qualifying begins at 1700 local time in Malaysia (1000 BST).