Baku (AFP) – Championship leader Sebastian Vettel bounced back to top the times for Ferrari ahead of nearest rival Lewis Hamilton in Saturday’s third and final free practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
After struggling to find a competitive set-up throughout Friday, both men rediscovered some pace with the four-time champion surging back to the top.
Vettel clocked a best time of one minute and 43.091 seconds, out-pacing the Briton, also a four-time champion, by 0.361 seconds.
Kimi Raikkonen, in the second Ferrari, was third, four-tenths of a second adrift of his team-mate ahead of Max Verstappen of Red Bull, Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes and Sergio Perez of Force India.
For the 20-year-old tyro Verstappen, it was also confirmation that he was back as a competitive force after an early crash had upset his running on Friday.
Kevin Magnussen was seventh for the Haas team ahead of Canadian Lance Stroll of Williams, Esteban Ocon in the second Force India and Russian Sergey Sirotkin in the second Williams.
The session run in cool and overcast conditions that again set a challenge to the teams tyre management on the fast Baku street circuit.
The session was interrupted with 10 minutes remaining when Sirotkin crashed at Turn Three, carrying too much speed into the corner and glancing his car into the barriers. He was unhurt.
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