Vettel quickest, Verstappen hits trouble in Austria FP3
Sebastian Vettel closed out Formula 1 practice for the Austrian Grand Prix at the head of the timesheets for Ferrari as Red Bull rival Max Verstappen finished his session parked up at the side of the track following a loss of power on his Red Bull car.
After seeing championship rival Lewis Hamilton lead both FP1 and FP2 for Mercedes on Friday at the Red Bull Ring, Vettel was able to strike back with a fastest lap of 1m04.070s in FP3 to give Ferrari top spot at the end of practice heading into qualifying later today.
Sebastian Vettel closed out Formula 1 practice for the Austrian Grand Prix at the head of the timesheets for Ferrari as Red Bull rival Max Verstappen finished his session parked up at the side of the track following a loss of power on his Red Bull car.
After seeing championship rival Lewis Hamilton lead both FP1 and FP2 for Mercedes on Friday at the Red Bull Ring, Vettel was able to strike back with a fastest lap of 1m04.070s in FP3 to give Ferrari top spot at the end of practice heading into qualifying later today.
Vettel's time saw him edge out Hamilton by just 0.029 seconds, with the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas finished a further 0.1s behind to take third in a close-fought session at the head of the standings. Kimi Raikkonen managed to take fourth for Ferrari, lapping four-tenths of a second slower than his teammate.
FP3 proved to be a difficult session for Red Bull as it struggled to match Ferrari or Mercedes for pace, with Verstappen and teammate Daniel Ricciardo finishing more than seven-tenths of a second off the pace in fifth and sixth place respectively.
The bigger worry for Verstappen was a sudden loss of power when downshifting at Turn 4 with 10 minutes remaining in the session, causing him to run wide before parking his car up at the side of the track, bringing his session to an early end.
Romain Grosjean was able to lead the midfield fight once again for Haas, taking P7 ahead of teammate Kevin Magnussen in eighth as both drivers finished within one second of Vettel at the front. Carlos Sainz Jr. was their closest challenger in ninth for Renault.
Charles Leclerc's impressive run of form continued as he finished 10th for Sauber, only to park up at the side of the track in the final minute of the session moments after exiting the pit lane, reporting a potential engine issue.
Nico Hulkenberg took 11th for Renault ahead of Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly, with Esteban Ocon following in P13 for Force India. Fernando Alonso bounced back from a disappointing display on Friday to finish 14th for McLaren ahead of Sergio Perez and Marcus Ericsson.
The kerbs continued to catch out drivers at the fianl corner as both Brendon Hartley and Stoffel Vandoorne damaged their front wings after running too wide, with the duo finishing FP3 17th and 18th respectively. Williams had another difficult session as Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin propped up the timesheets in P19 and P20.
Qualifying takes place at 3pm local time in Austria at the Red Bull Ring (2pm BST).
