Raikkonen tops FP3 - Summary and results

Kimi Raikkonen has once again won a Free Practice, this time with a substantial gap between him and his opponents of over half a second.

The session started rather quiet, as it took over fifteen minutes for someone to post a lap time at all. Carlos Sainz Junior was the first to do so, but he was quickly trumped by Valtteri Bottas, who posted a rapid 1:30.781.

Sebastian Vettel was the one who improved Finn's time, only to be almost immediately overtaken by his teammate Kimi Raikkonen. That proved to be the best time of the session for both of them; P1 for Raikkonen, P5 for Vettel

The Ice Man shattered the lap times that had been logged up until that point by almost a second, and that time proved to be enough to hold on to first place in FP3. Last night, he was the one who came out on top too in FP2; could Raikkonen be the man to beat in Bahrain, or at least add to his record eight podium finishes at Sakhir?

The Red Bulls were the last team to get out on the track, and they left it late to impress. Both Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo went out on supersofts and knocked Lewis Hamilton from second into fourth, as the Dutchman and the Aussie beat Hamilton by 3 tenths of a second. 

At the other end of the spectrum, Williams once again had a disappointing showing, occupying the last two places of the field. The team looked like a work in progress to put it lightly, almost three seconds off the pace that Raikkonen set.