Monaco, FP3: Hamilton heads Ricciardo

Hamilton tops final Monte-Carlo practice

Lewis Hamilton finished the final practice session ahead of Monaco’s crucial qualifying session at the top of the timesheet, but only by five hundredths of a second.

With Mercedes’ performance advantage somewhat blunted by the twisting streets of the Principality, Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo split the Mercedes pair of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who ended the session a tenth behind his team-mate.

Rosberg had run quickest in the earlier part of the session, when the teams ran with Pirelli’s Soft tyre, but when the switch was made to the option Supersoft in the closing stages of the session, the championship leader edged ahead of the German once more.

Although defending champion Sebastian Vettel logged the quickest second sector time on the Supersoft, the Red Bull Racing couldn’t match the pace at the start and end of his laps on the option tyre and finished fourth, four tenths of a second behind Hamilton. He, along with others, was often frustrated by traffic during the session and was seen waving his fist angrily at Williams’ Felipe Massa as the driver set about their qualifying simulations on the packed track.

Behind Vettel the Fernando Alonos and Kimi Raikkonen were fifth and sixth quickest respectively and the Ferrari pairing were separated by just two hundredths of a second.

They were backed up by the Force India machines of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg, who finished just five hundredths of a second apart, and the Toro Rossos of Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniil Kvyat, with the Frenchman beating out the Russian by just under a tenth of a second.