Ferrari continued their domination in Bahrain as Charles Leclerc led a one-two in final practice.
The Italian team arrived for the second round of the Formula One World Championship under pressure following a savage beating by Mercedes in Australia.
But after Leclerc went quickest in the first running and Sebastian Vettel secured top spot in second practice on Friday, Leclerc was again fastest in the final session with Ferrari the clear favourites heading into qualifying.
🏁 #FP3 is done ✅ #Charles16 and #Seb5 finished the session in P1 and P2 respectively. Next up, #Quali 💪#essereFerrari #BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/dW3qVpH4tf — Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) March 30, 2019
For Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton set a time good enough for third, but the world champion was a hefty 0.765 seconds slower than Leclerc.
His team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who leads the world championship following his win in Melbourne, finished fourth.
Wrapping up #FP3 with Lewis in P3 – 1:30.334 – and VB in P4 – 1:30:389. Next up, Quali... 👀 #BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/XKmgqgx5ah — Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) March 30, 2019
The lap times will be treated with caution given that the afternoon heat is not representative of the cooler conditions for qualifying, but the evidence suggests Ferrari will be hard to beat in the battle for pole.
Elsewhere, the Haas of driver Romain Grosjean finished fifth, with Renault's Nico Hulkenberg sixth, and British teenager Lando Norris seventh for McLaren, 1.3secs behind the front-runners.
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