Spain – Free Practice 3: Mercedes’ domination continues, Hartley in the wall

For this last free practice session, the weather was mild, with 20°C in the air and 32°C on the track, which is less than what we experienced yesterday. The risk of rain was even estimated at 10%. This had a significant impact on the cars’ behavior and the tire warming process.

At the start of the session, it’s Brendon Hartley who is the most diligent on track and is the only one to have his name on the timing sheet after fifteen minutes, with a best time of 1:20.073. But when Valtteri Bottas decided to take matters into his own hands, the pace significantly increased with a 1:18.496, which was immediately beaten by Sebastian Vettel, before Lewis Hamilton approached the 1:17 mark (1:18.112). Ultimately, it was Valtteri Bottas who crossed this symbolic barrier, setting a new track record.

It was interesting to note that the three leading teams attempted alternative strategies, with Mercedes using soft tires, Ferrari on super softs, and Red Bull on mediums. This could therefore open up different strategies, especially depending on each team’s weather forecasts.

If Sebastian Vettel was ultimately able to beat the time set on softs by the Mercedes, they regained the upper hand as soon as they put on the red tires for their qualifying simulations.

Lance Stroll went off the track again at turn 4, which caught out many drivers during yesterday’s sessions, while Daniel Ricciardo performed a small maneuver at turn 13. The Red Bull mechanics had to work on Max Verstappen’s car as a change of the floor took place in the last quarter of the session. At the very end of the session, Romain Grosjean was forced to go into the gravel at the second turn to avoid Sergey Sirotkin’s Williams, which was much slower but on the ideal racing line.

Two minutes before the scheduled end, the red flag was brought out due to Brendon Hartley’s major off-track incident at turn 10. This was caused by taking a line slightly too wide. Contact with the grass made him lose control of the car, which spun and propelled him into the safety barrier. While the driver is unharmed, it triggered a race against time for his mechanics to be ready for qualifying. Given the state of the car, it seems almost impossible to achieve, especially since the car broke in two when it was lifted by the rescue tractor.

“Yeah, I’m OK.” radios Hartley. #F1 #FP3 #SpanishGP pic.twitter.com/9NW75y1K4A — Peter Leung (@BaronVonClutch) 12 mai 2018

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The final ranking is therefore:

The championship leader is on top heading into qualifying

Both
@HaasF1Team cars make the top 10 💪
#SpanishGP 🇪🇸
#F1
pic.twitter.com/O0RVXxv7A9

— Formula 1 (@F1)
May 12, 2018

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From our special correspondent in Barcelona