The Finn clocked a 1m29.055s on soft tyres to finish 0.014s clear of Hamilton, with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel three tenths off the pace, on supersofts in third. 

It was frustrating session for both Mercedes and Ferrari, with Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen crashing and Vettel the only four of the quartet to get a representative lap on supersofts. 

The threat of rain failed to materialise at Suzuka, allowing the field to head out on the slicks from the off and set about making up for lost running in the rain-hit second practice. 

Bottas set the early pace on the soft tyre, a fraction ahead of Mercedes teammate Hamilton, who was running the same rubber. 

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third on the soft, 1.334s adrift, with teammate Daniel Ricciardo four tenths further back on the supersofts in fourth. 

The session was then red-flagged when Bottas ran wide out of Spoon, running onto the grass at the exit and lifting up the artificial grass. 

The Mercedes driver clipped the barrier a couple of times, damaging the right-rear corner of the car, and though he made it back to the pits, that was the end of his session. 

Running got back under way just after the halfway point but lasted just three minutes when race control red-flagged it again following Raikkonen’s crash at Degner 2.

Replays showed the rear of his Ferrari got away from him mid-corner and though Raikkonen reacted, he couldn’t gather it up before he hit the barriers, damaging the left side of the car. 

The marshals quickly craned his damaged Ferrari over the barriers, allowing the session to get going again. 

However, several drivers, including Hamilton, had their supersoft qualifying simulations ruined by the two red-flag interruptions.  

Vettel had focused on race simulations early in the session, before turning his attention to the supersofts and low fuel. 

His first effort put him third and though he improved next time around, he was still 0.324s adrift of the two Mercedes, which set their respective laps on the softs. 

Verstappen’s supersoft tyre run put him fourth, 0.855s off the pace and one tenth clear of Ricciardo in fifth.  

Esteban Ocon was best of the rest in sixth, just over a second adrift of Bottas, with Nico Hulkenberg the leading Renault in seventh.  

Fernando Alonso, who has a 35-place grid penalty for engine component changes ahead of FP3, was eighth as Sergio Perez ended up ninth.  

Jolyon Palmer made it two Renaults in the top 10, but he will start Sunday’s race towards the back after engine component changes handed him a 20-place grid drop. 

Carlos Sainz, who has also been hit by a 20-place grid penalty, was summoned to the stewards for crossing the pitlane exit line while the red light was on. The Toro Rosso driver escaped penalty, and was 13th fastest.

Raikkonen ended up bottom of the timesheets, having focused on race simulations on older sets of supersofts and then crashed when he bolted a fresh set of supersofts on. 

Practice results:

Pos.	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	Mercedes	9	1'29.055
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	19	1'29.069	0.014
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	23	1'29.379	0.324
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	15	1'29.910	0.855
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	13	1'30.018	0.963
6	Esteban Ocon	Force India	Mercedes	12	1'30.109	1.054
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	Renault	19	1'30.315	1.260
8	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Honda	13	1'30.424	1.369
9	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	12	1'30.563	1.508
10	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	Renault	22	1'30.764	1.709
11	Felipe Massa	Williams	Mercedes	21	1'30.764	1.709
12	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	Honda	18	1'30.770	1.715
13	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso	Renault	23	1'30.799	1.744
14	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	Ferrari	12	1'30.982	1.927
15	Lance Stroll	Williams	Mercedes	20	1'31.011	1.956
16	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	Renault	25	1'31.353	2.298
17	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari	13	1'31.459	2.404
18	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	22	1'32.579	3.524
19	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber	Ferrari	21	1'32.698	3.643
20	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	12	1'33.962	4.907