 |
 |
As it happened: Saturday practice
By Geoff Creighton, Charles Bradley and Scott Mitchell
The live commentary has ended. No further updates will be posted.
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
OVERVIEW |
PRACTICE THREE |
 |
|
 |
 |
Session length: |
60 minutes |
 |
|
 |
CURRENT WEATHER |
 |
 |
Hazy |
High Temp: |
30°C / 86°F |
Track: |
Dry |
|
 |
 |
Champion-elect Sebastian Vettel set the pace in both sessions of practice on Friday, with Red Bull looking to hold the advantage once again going into the weekend.
This final hour of practice will give the teams a last chance to evaluate the two tyre compounds and make final adjustments to the now race-prepared machines.
Drivers found the medium rubber to be an ideal race tyre, giving plenty of consistent pace over a large number of laps.
But the soft tyres do look to be a challenge, at least with the track conditions experienced on Friday afternoon. While giving an obvious performance boost, drivers struggled to keep the soft rubber alive, with the left front in particular subject to graining.
Outfits may bring forward the typical pre-qualifying evaluation of the soft in this session to run further laps of race preparation.