After two free practice sessions on Friday that were blighted by rain, FP3 started in completely dry conditions with no further precipitation that has hampered the weekend so far.

After Ricciardo set the early pace, the Mercedes juggernaut put its Singapore nightmare behind it with Rosberg dipping into the 1m33s bracket, three tenths clear of teammate Hamilton. 

Story of the session

Ricciardo was first to set a representative dry time on hard tyres, a 1m36.392s, and quickly lowered that to 1m36.010s. Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen went P2 on 1m36.569s, and then set 1m36.209s.

“Grip is very poor out here,” complained Hamilton after his first run, which he ended in P7 on the hards.

Ricciardo took the medium tyre early and set a 1m34.755s. Red Bull’s quartet of Renault-powered cars filled first four places after 15 minutes, with Ricciardo ahead of Verstappen, Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat, the latter destroying his first set of hard tyres with a big lock-up.

Verstappen improved to 1m35.160s on the medium, and Sainz to 1m36.059s despite running wide at Degner 2.

McLaren’s Jenson Button leapt temporarily to fourth on 1m36.174s on the mediums, despite blaming his team for putting him on the wrong DRS beep setting, but his session ended early with a technical issue and he finished 12th.

Ricciardo went again on fresh mediums, lowering the top time to 1m34.497s to run almost half a second clear of the pack, ahead of Williams's Valtteri Bottas in P2 on 1m35.128s.

Felipe Massa, who had to make an early pitstop to secure his Williams's headrest, improved to P2 on 1m34.934s, hampering Vettel slightly at the end of his out lap – the Singapore GP winner languishing down in 11^th at this juncture.

Hamilton and Rosberg were 12^th and 13^th respectively just after the halfway point, but Rosberg’s first lap on mediums rocketed him to the top spot on 1m33.995s, half a second quicker than Ricciardo.

Hamilton then recorded a 1m34.292s to go P2, 0.297s down on Rosberg. Bottas went fourth behind Ricciardo, 0.8s off the pace with five minutes remaining.

Vettel was down in 17^th before his final run, with Raikkonen 18^th. They improved to eighth and sixth respectively, with Vettel delayed by Kvyat.

Kvyat, who had already had one adventure into the Spoon runoff, took a trip to the gravel at Degner 2 and finished way down in 14th.

Massa stayed fifth, with Verstappen seventh behind Raikkonen and ahead of Vettel. Romain Grosjean was the fastest Lotus in ninth, ahead of Sainz.

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso had a big moment at Spoon late on, and finished the session in 16^th.

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W06 Hybrid	1:33.995		19
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W06 Hybrid	1:34.292	+0.297	20
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull RB11	1:34.497	+0.502	22
4	Valtteri Bottas	Williams FW37	1:34.797	+0.802	27
5	Felipe Massa	Williams FW37	1:34.934	+0.939	25
6	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF15-T	1:35.082	+1.087	16
7	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso STR10	1:35.160	+1.165	26
8	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari SF15-T	1:35.222	+1.227	16
9	Romain Grosjean	Lotus E23 Hybrid	1:35.602	+1.607	20
10	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso STR10	1:35.963	+1.968	29
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India VJM08	1:36.110	+2.115	19
12	Jenson Button	McLaren MP4-30	1:36.174	+2.179	15
13	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber C34	1:36.199	+2.204	19
14	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull RB11	1:36.294	+2.299	23
15	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus E23 Hybrid	1:36.307	+2.312	21
16	Fernando Alonso	McLaren MP4-30	1:36.360	+2.365	18
17	Sergio Perez	Force India VJM08	1:36.430	+2.435	21
18	Felipe Nasr	Sauber C34	1:36.919	+2.924	24
19	Will Stevens	Marussia MR03B	1:39.653	+5.658	24
20	Alexander Rossi	Marussia MR03B	1:39.819	+5.824	22