Russian GP: Leclerc leads Ferrari 1-2 in third practice

Leclerc, who won the Belgian and Italian GPs from pole, was comfortably on top in the 60-minute Saturday session at Sochi as Ferrari’s advantage over Mercedes continued.

Ferrari was not expected to continue its strong Singapore form into this weekend’s event but Mercedes appears to be struggling to optimise its tyres over a lap compared to its rival frontrunners.

Leclerc controlled the session throughout although only beat Verstappen’s Friday benchmark in the final 20 minutes.

Initially, Leclerc was on top with a 1m33.906s but the Monegasque lapped 1.1s quicker than that on his first flying lap on his last run.

He shaved off another tenth from that time after backing off to cool his tyres, ending up on a 1m32.861s, 0.3s quicker than the best lap on Friday.

Hamilton ended up the best of the Mercedes runners, 0.396s off the pace, having feared after his first runs that a much bigger margin would be difficult to eradicate.

Despite finding more time at the end, and briefly going second in the times, Hamilton was overhauled by the second Ferrari.

Vettel was 0.4s slower than Leclerc after their first laps on the last runs, but made a decent improvement to get back ahead of Hamilton with a 1m33.129s.  

Max Verstappen was expected to challenge Leclerc for the quickest time after initially lapping just 0.4s off the pace in the first runs despite only using the medium compound.

However, he failed to set a flying lap after switching to softs. His first lap on a late run was compromised by a wide moment exiting Turn 2 that sent him very slightly airborne over the exit kerb.

He spun on his second flying lap under braking for the tight Turn 13 right-hander after the long left, and ended up lightly nerfing the barrier rearwards.

That left Verstappen fifth in the times, ahead of the Haas of Romain Grosjean. The Frenchman was on an even faster lap when he had a wide moment and skated over a sausage kerb, but his best was still good enough to finish just 1.5s off the pace.

A late lap launched Alex Albon to seventh in the second Red Bull but he lost time running wide out of the final corner and should have moved to fifth.

Nico Hulkenberg was eighth-fastest for Renault ahead of the McLaren of Lando Norris, as Kevin Magnussen completed the top 10 in the second Haas.

Towards the back of the order, Daniil Kvyat completed just four laps as his miserable home grand prix continued.

After losing time in FP1 and being told he could not use a special tribute helmet on Friday, Kvyat stopped on-track in FP3 with a Honda engine issue.

He will switch to a new Spec 4 engine for the grand prix as he is poised to start last anyway after multiple component changes already. 

Session results

Cla	#	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	14	1'32.733
2	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	15	1'33.049	0.316
3	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	19	1'33.129	0.396
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	18	1'33.354	0.621
5	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	12	1'34.227	1.494
6	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas	17	1'34.308	1.575
7	23	Alex Albon	Red Bull	21	1'34.371	1.638
8	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	13	1'34.421	1.688
9	4	Lando Norris	McLaren	15	1'34.527	1.794
10	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	15	1'34.546	1.813
11	10	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	16	1'34.564	1.831
12	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	14	1'34.586	1.853
13	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren	18	1'34.607	1.874
14	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	15	1'34.766	2.033
15	11	Sergio Perez	Racing Point	7	1'34.860	2.127
16	18	Lance Stroll	Racing Point	16	1'34.898	2.165
17	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	19	1'35.714	2.981
18	63	George Russell	Williams	18	1'36.011	3.278
19	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	4	1'36.081	3.348
20	88	Robert Kubica	Williams	19	1'36.942	4.209
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