Lewis Hamilton Tops Free Practice 3 At Australian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton lead a Mercedes 1–2 as teams concentrated on qualifying simulations in the final free practice session ahead of qualifying later in the day.

The final free practice session saw Mercedes use the Supersoft tyres for the first time this season during the final 10 minute scramble at the end of the one hour session as Hamilton clocked a 1:25.624 lap, 0.176s ahead of Rosberg on a dry Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne.

However, the biggest story of the final free practice run was Ferrari's improvement as Sebastian Vettel set a time of 1:25.852 despite a big lockup at the second to last corner of his flying lap. Vettel's teammate Kimi Raikkonen set a lap of 1m26.435s to finish fifth.

Carlos Sainz slipped in between the two Ferrari drivers with a time of 1m26.257s in his Toro Rosso, which is running Ferrari's 2015 engine.

Max Verstappen came in sixth in his Torro Rosso followed by the Williams of Valteri Bottas and the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo. Felipe Massa's Williams and the Force India driven by Sergio Perez rounded off the top 10.

McLaren also showed quite a bit of improvement but were still over 1.6s off the pace of Hamilton as they finished with Fernando Alonso in 11th (1m27.263s) and Jenson Button in 12th (1m27.341s).

There were quite a bit of thrills and spills during the session as well, though the silliest one of the lot was Manor's Rio Haryanto ramming into the back of the Hass of Romain Grosjean.