Mercedes bounced back in Suzuka to set the top two quickest times with Valtteri Bottas topping the timing sheets with a staggering lap of 1:29.055, closely followed by his team-mate Lewis Hamilton just 0.014s behind. What was even more astounding, was that they were the only drivers to set their fastest times on the slower Pirelli Soft compound.
After FP2 was rather washed out on Friday afternoon, the teams got down business quickly when the green light opened the pit lane at precisely midday on Saturday afternoon at Suzuka for FP3.
With the cars getting an almost dry circuit, courtesy of the 26 Formula FJ (think of a cross between Formula Ford and F4…) drivers who qualified immediately prior to the F1 cars hitting the track, drivers were on the limit from the get go.
First to lay down his cards for the afternoon’s qualifying session was Hamilton who immediately went under the magical 1:30s mark with a very rapid 1:29.699s to jump to the top of the timing sheet. But Hamilton’s next flying lap, just a few minutes later was astounding when he took the bench mark down to 1:29.069s after just 10 minutes of practice.
Despite everything thinking that this time would stand for the entire session, Hamilton’s teammate had obviously not read the script and eclipsed the Brit by 0.014s a few minutes later, bang and both Mercedes’ were at the top of the sheets again. Could Ferrari show them up?
That question was partially answered a few minutes later when the red flag was waved after Bottas went off on the Astro-turf, glancing the barriers and covering the track with splinters of silver carbon fibre from the right side of his W08. Bottas did though manage to limp back to the pits with a right rear puncture.
When the lights went green once more, still with 30 minutes of the session to go (the Japanese marshals are so awfully efficient when it comes to cleaning bits off the track), the cars went out once more with Ferrari determined more than ever to usurp the Silver Arrows from their top positions as they switched into “quali simulation mode”.
And first to attempt a flying lap was Kimi Räikkönen who sadly didn’t get his SF70H’s tyres warned up enough as he lost control in Turn 9 and clattered into the barriers bringing out the red flag from a second time in the session. Again the efficient marshals had the car removed and the track cleaned in minutes and the session was back to green with a full 20 minutes practice time remaining.
Now it was down to Vettel to take the fight to the fight to the Brackley squad but the best he could do came up three tenths shy of Bottas and Hamilton. Verstappen and Ricciardo were trading times late into the session but neither had the pace and in the end they were eight and nine tenths off the Mercedes pair come the end of the session.
Making up the top ten were some of the usual suspects, Ocon (6th), Hülkenberg (7th) and Perez (9th) but Alonso (8th) and Palmer (10th) showed that come this afternoon, they would be serious challengers to make Q3!
