Bahrain Practice 3: Clean sweep for Hamilton and Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton fastest in FP3

There is simply no touching Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes this weekend so far in Bahrain as once again they topped the timing screens, this time at the end of the third and final free practice at Sakhir.
To add insult to injury, for their rivals, Nico Rosberg was once again second best and thus making it a clean sweep in practice for the Silver Arrows and it would take a brave person to bet against them repeating the feat in qualifying.
Lewis Hamilton completed a practice hat-trick on Saturday after lapping fastest in his Mercedes in the third and final session for the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix.
The Briton, who was top in both of Friday’s sessions, completed 12 laps and was 0.115 seconds quicker than team mate Nico Rosberg as the pair finished one-two for the third practice in a row at the Sakhir desert circuit.

Sergio Perez second fastest

Hamilton, the 2008 champion, can complete another hat-trick in qualifying for the third race of the season after taking pole position in Australia and Malaysia.
While Mercedes were again the class act in the field on a clear and hot afternoon, Red Bull’s quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel ended up 21st of 22 drivers on the timesheets after spinning off and into the gravel.
“I spun on the exit of Turn Two and the engine went off immediately,” said the German, who walked back into the paddock before the session had ended.
Mexican Sergio Perez was third fastest in a Force India with Valtteri Bottas fourth for Williams, who left it late to get their cars out, ahead of Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa and McLaren’s Jenson Button.

Valtteri Bottas fourth fastest

The top six drivers were all in Mercedes-powered cars. The best of the rest was Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso who was seventh fastest.
Qualifying will be in far cooler conditions, with Sunday’s race switching to a day-to-night format under floodlights for the first time. Track temperatures in final practice were around 35 degrees celsius.
Rosberg leads Hamilton by 18 points after two races, with the Mercedes drivers on one win apiece.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:35.324		12
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:35.439	0.115	12
3	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:35.868	0.544	10
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:36.116	0.792	10
5	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:36.364	1.040	8
6	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:36.394	1.070	8
7	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:36.454	1.130	12
8	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:36.455	1.131	11
9	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:36.680	1.356	16
10	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:36.772	1.448	13
11	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:36.822	1.498	8
12	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:37.030	1.706	11
13	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:37.119	1.795	11
14	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:37.325	2.001	18
15	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:38.089	2.765	24
16	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	1:38.400	3.076	17
17	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:38.736	3.412	15
18	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1:38.880	3.556	21
19	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	1:38.971	3.647	18
20	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:39.208	3.884	17
21	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:39.225	3.901	8
22	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	1:39.597	4.273	14