Nico Rosberg took the honors at the end of the third free practice session for Mercedes for the Spanish Grand Prix just ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
Rosberg set a time of 1:26.021 on a set of the option tyres while Vettel managed a 1:26.177, just 0.156s off the pace. Lewis Hamilton ended his session in P3 with a 1:26.22. Hamilton had a little spin at the exit of the long right hander T3. He dipped his rear left wheel into the astro turf at the apex of the corner which resulted in the rear of the car stepping out and he spun out. He caught the spin but flat spotted his tyres quite badly.
Williams’ Valtteri Bottas finished in P4 with Kimi Raikkonen ending his session in P5. After quite a few aerodynamic updates to the car, Raikkonen decided not to use some of the new parts and reverted back to the older parts. It also emerged that when he set his time on the options that he was on the incorrect charge setting. When notified of this by Dave Greenwood, his race engineer, he replied in classic Kimi fashion: “Excellent, excellent!” he replied.
Daniel Ricciardo was P6 with team mate Daniil Kvat in P9. Kvyat suffered from power unit issues and sat out the first half of FP3. He eventually emerged from the pits and had very limited running but still managed to get a good time in. Felipe Massa finished in P7 and Verstappen in P8 wtih Carlos Sainz rounding out the top 10.
McLaren are seeing some improvement from the new parts and are much higher up the order with Jenson Button ending his session in P11 and Fernando Alonso in P14. Nico Hulkenberg could manage P12 and with team mate Sergio Perez down in P18 for Force India who have pushed back the introduction for their B-spec car.
Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson finished P13 and P17 respectively for Sauber while Lotus who were expecting their new parts to bring some performance ended the session in P15 for Romain Grosjean and P16 for Pastor Maldonado. The two Manor cars of Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi were 19th and 20th respectively.
Mercedes still has the edge over Ferrari at the moment. We’ll have to see what qualifying and the race brings to see who’s made more of an improvement over others.
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:26.021 | – | 19 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1:26.177 | 0.156s | 14 |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:26.222 | 0.201s | 10 |
| 4 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams/Mercedes | 1:26.682 | 0.661s | 19 |
| 5 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1:26.944 | 0.923s | 14 |
| 6 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/Renault | 1:27.048 | 1.027s | 19 |
| 7 | Felipe Massa | Williams/Mercedes | 1:27.109 | 1.088s | 19 |
| 8 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso/Renault | 1:27.132 | 1.111s | 18 |
| 9 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull/Renault | 1:27.313 | 1.292s | 7 |
| 10 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso/Renault | 1:27.809 | 1.788s | 17 |
| 11 | Jenson Button | McLaren/Honda | 1:27.938 | 1.917s | 17 |
| 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India/Mercedes | 1:28.082 | 2.061s | 13 |
| 13 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber/Ferrari | 1:28.096 | 2.075s | 23 |
| 14 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren/Honda | 1:28.304 | 2.283s | 17 |
| 15 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus/Mercedes | 1:28.578 | 2.557s | 17 |
| 16 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus/Mercedes | 1:28.618 | 2.597s | 18 |
| 17 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber/Ferrari | 1:28.788 | 2.767s | 20 |
| 18 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | 1:28.996 | 2.975s | 14 |
| 19 | Will Stevens | Marussia/Ferrari | 1:31.125 | 5.104s | 16 |
| 20 | Roberto Merhi | Marussia/Ferrari | 1:31.749 | 5.728s | 17 |
Photo credit: Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team
