Vettel denies Hamilton at the last GP session of Austria | Racing News



[ad_1]

SPIELBERG (Austria): Sebastian Vettel bounced ahead of Ferrari ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the third and final free practice session on Saturday for the Austrian Grand Prix.

The quadruple champion, who had been ahead in both sessions Friday and throughout the Grand Prix of France last weekend, signed the fastest lap in one minute and 4,070 seconds.

That was just enough to put him ahead of the British league leader by 0.029 seconds with his team-mates Finns Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes and Kimi Raikkonen taking third and fourth place.

The four main pilots were separated by only 0.400 seconds.

This was the first session since qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix, during which Vettel outclbaded his teammate four times, champion Hamilton, in his yo-yo race this year.

Hamilton finished first on both Friday and Bottas and signed to him the best times of Saturday 's practice session before Vettel retaliated to take the initiative.
Behind them, Max Verstappen and his Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who turn 29 on Sunday, are fifth and sixth, the Dutchman stopping in the final minutes after a loss of power.

Romain Grosjean is seventh ahead of Kevin Magnussen, his team-mate from Haas, an indicator that their Ferrari-powered cars have the performance needed to shine on the short but quaint and greedy Red Bull Ring circuit in the Styrian Alps.

Carlos Sainz was ninth for Renault ahead of Monégasque Charles Leclerc, who made another impressive run for Sauber before he too was embarrbaded by a power failure during his final round.

The session saw a series of minor incidents, most of the time when pilots ran on the curbs of the "sausage" in the last turns and damaged their front wings, the team of Toro Rosso losing several bodies.

Stoffel Vandoorne, struggling with his McLaren, also ran at the last corner before finishing 18th, four places behind his teammate, the double champion Fernando Alonso.

[ad_2]
Source link