Hamilton leads from Vettel in final Bahrain practice

The British driver led the way for the first time in a session this weekend, finishing with a best time of 1:34.599.

But the threat from Ferrari looked more real than ever, with Vettel less than a tenth of a second behind the Mercedes ahead of the grid-deciding session in two hours.

Nico Rosberg had to settle for third position in the second Mercedes, the German - yesterday's pace-setter - nearly four tenths off the pace.

Kimi Raikkonen was fourth for Ferrari, the Finn chased by the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa.

Pastor Maldonado finished in seventh in the Lotus, ahead of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg and the Sauber of Felipe Nasr, who completed the top 10.

Several drivers took their time to jump onto the track as the wind made the conditions very tricky, with the circuit covered in sand despite the GP2 race taking place earlier.

McLaren's Jenson Button had no choice but to be one of the first men to run following the problems that affected him yesterday. The Briton set the early pace but was quickly outpaced by the Sauber of Nasr as the action was scarce on track.

Fifteen minutes in, only six drivers had posted a time, and Hamilton and Rosberg had not even gone out before that.

Rosberg needed just one lap to put Mercedes back on top of the times, but was outpaced first by Vettel and then by Raikkonen before the halfway point of the session, the Finn posting the first 1:36s lap of the session.

The session was red-flagged 30 minutes in when Daniil Kvyat lost control of his Red Bull at the exit of Turn 4.

The Russian lost the rear of his car under acceleration and spun. Although the spin seemed harmless, Kvyat left his car run backwards for too long and ended up rolling into the gravel.

The soft-tyre runs kicked off with some 10 minutes to go, and Force India's Hulkenberg led the way briefly before Rosberg retook P1 with a 1:34.968, over 1.5 seconds off his closest rival.

Hamilton leapt to the top with seven minutes left, while Vettel moved to second in the Ferrari just moments later.

FP3 results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
01	L. Hamilton	Mercedes	1:34.599		13
02	S. Vettel	Ferrari	1:34.668	+0.069	14
03	N. Rosberg	Mercedes	1:34.968	+0.369	16
04	K. Raikkönen	Ferrari	1:35.141	+0.542	13
05	V. Bottas	Williams	1:35.393	+0.794	18
06	F. Massa	Williams	1:35.471	+0.872	15
07	P. Maldonado	Lotus	1:36.307	+1.708	14
08	D. Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:36.335	+1.736	8
09	N. Hulkenberg	Force India	1:36.421	+1.822	13
10	F. Nasr	Sauber	1:36.429	+1.830	18
11	J. Button	McLaren	1:36.488	+1.889	14
12	D. Kvyat	Red Bull	1:36.548	+1.949	7
13	M. Ericsson	Sauber	1:36.612	+2.013	17
14	M. Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:36.684	+2.085	11
15	S. Perez	Force India	1:36.727	+2.128	14
16	F. Alonso	McLaren	1:36.899	+2.300	11
17	C. Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:36.979	+2.380	14
18	R. Grosjean	Lotus	1:37.151	+2.552	17
19	W. Stevens	Manor	1:39.745	+5.146	12
20	R. Merhi	Manor	1:40.541	+5.942	14