Brazilian GP final practice and qualifying
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Welcome to live coverage of the final free practice session ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix.
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Scott Mitchell
The weather is very Brazilian. Warm (24C) but cloudy, threatening to rain – humidity only 58% after being 80% yesterday. Track temp is 34C.
So, 60 minutes of running remain before qualifying, and as this session goes on we'll get a better indication of how the teams stack up. We ended Friday with a Mercedes 1-2, but Vettel was within a tenth, and in FP1 the top three (Verstappen, Vettel, Hamilton) were covered by less than a tenth as well. The short lap at Interlagos is keeping things close, although it's debatable how much Red Bull will be in the fight today when the engines get turned up.
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Green flag
The track is open, and the Saubers both head out immediately.
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Radio Comms
Leclerc changed his pedal map by mistake, so he's asking Sauber what it needs to be.
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Quiet start to FP3 - we've seen nine cars leave the pitlane so far, but no times set yet.
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Stopwatch
Raikkonen kicks us off on the timing screens with a 1m09.424s on supersofts.
Sirotkin crosses the line 1.5s down on the Ferrari.
As it's such a short lap here, the teams aren't under massive pressure to get their pre-qualifying simulation runs out of the way too early in FP3. When the cars are coming around almost every minute, there's plenty of time to get your runs in.
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Stopwatch
Raikkonen improves his time again to a 1m09.409s.
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Stroll moves ahead of Sirotkin to make it a Williams 2-3... out of three cars to have set a time.
Radio Comms
"You can push," Vettel is told as he starts a flying lap on supersofts.
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Radio Comms
Stroll asked to do another lap, and Williams suggests he tries to reduce the rear tyre temperatures if he's going to stay out.
Sainz goes second in his Renault.
Stopwatch
Sure enough, Vettel goes fastest with a 1m08.857s.
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Edd Straw
Interesting to compare Vettel and Raikkonen through the Turn 6/7 double right - Ferradura and Laranjinha. Raikkonen keeps it a little tighter after taking the first apex while Vettel runs slightly wider.
Radio Comms
Hamilton was told to abort his practice start, head out onto the track carefully and return to the pits immediately. He asked if the team want him to take it easy, and after some confusion was eventually told "drive back, normal pace".
In the other Mercedes, Bottas slots into third behind the Ferraris. Future stars Leclerc and Gasly move into fourth and fifth.
Radio Comms
Hulkenberg said his steering feels "much heavier" when turning to the right.
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Hulkenberg works around his heavy steering to go fifth. Fortunately there are quite a few left-handers here.
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Scott Mitchell
Bottas carries great speed through Ferradura, although the rear end becomes a little unstable in Laranjinha.
Bottas moves up to second, while a wall of Mercedes mechanics have now stood across the front of Hamilton's side of the garage as work goes on under the bodywork of the world champion's car. Not ideal...
Earlier we had a Williams 2-3, now we have a Sauber 4-5. Ericsson slots in behind Leclerc, with a fair few cars on the leaderboard now, so a good start for Sauber.
Here's a look at where Edd Straw is perched at the moment.
Grosjean spoils the Sauber fun, splitting Leclerc and Ericsson to move up to fifth.
By: Geoff Creighton
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