Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, Bahrain International Circuit, 2018

Raikkonen quickest as Vettel hits trouble

2018 Bahrain Grand Prix third practice

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Kimi Raikkonen comfortably headed the final practice session in Bahrain while Ferrari team mate Sebastian Vettel endured a troubled session.

Vettel’s problems began when he left the pits to begin his first run around a quarter of an hour into the session and his right-hand sidepod wing worked loose. That forced him into the pits for repairs.

Once he got back onto the circuit Vettel was able to complete a timed run which was eventually good enough for fifth. However on his last run he reported poor drive-ability from his power unit and was told to head back to the pits.

In the meantime Raikkonen got within a few hundredths of a second of matching his best time from yesterday. This put him eight-tenths of a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton, although the Mercedes driver was told the team could see a “power difference” between his lap and Raikkonen’s run.

Hamilton fell to fourth in the times after late efforts from the Red Bull drivers, on the same super-soft tyres as the others, put them second and third. Max Verstappen had a minor run-in with Raikkonen when the two came across each other at the apex of turn one.

Valtteri Bottas ended the session in sixth place following a heavy lock-up at turn one. he was just three-tenths of a second quicker than the Renault pair, headed by Nico Hulkenberg.

Toro Rosso showed encouraging pace again as Pierre Gasly reached the top 10 and Brendon Hartley was just a hundredth of a second slower. Nonetheless the pair were separated by Fernando Alonso’s McLaren, indicating the fight for a place in Q3 will be especially fierce in qualifying.

The highest Haas was Romain Grosjean’s 12th-placed car. He was badly held up approaching the final corner on his last run by slow traffic on the racing line.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
17Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’29.86815
233Max VerstappenRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’30.3930.5258
33Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’30.4520.5848
444Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’30.6910.82314
55Sebastian VettelFerrari1’30.7190.8518
677Valtteri BottasMercedes1’30.7810.91316
727Nico HulkenbergRenault1’31.1441.27611
855Carlos Sainz JnrRenault1’31.2001.33212
910Pierre GaslyToro Rosso-Honda1’31.4381.57018
1014Fernando AlonsoMcLaren-Renault1’31.4451.57713
1128Brendon HartleyToro Rosso-Honda1’31.4601.59218
128Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’31.5131.64514
1331Esteban OconForce India-Mercedes1’31.5541.68617
1411Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’31.5641.69614
1520Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’31.7371.86914
169Marcus EricssonSauber-Ferrari1’31.8591.99117
172Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren-Renault1’31.8601.99214
1816Charles LeclercSauber-Ferrari1’32.0472.17919
1935Sergey SirotkinWilliams-Mercedes1’32.4632.59511
2018Lance StrollWilliams-Mercedes1’32.8652.99712

Third practice visual gaps

Kimi Raikkonen – 1’29.868

+0.525 Max Verstappen – 1’30.393

+0.584 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’30.452

+0.823 Lewis Hamilton – 1’30.691

+0.851 Sebastian Vettel – 1’30.719

+0.913 Valtteri Bottas – 1’30.781

+1.276 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’31.144

+1.332 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’31.200

+1.570 Pierre Gasly – 1’31.438

+1.577 Fernando Alonso – 1’31.445

+1.592 Brendon Hartley – 1’31.460

+1.645 Romain Grosjean – 1’31.513

+1.686 Esteban Ocon – 1’31.554

+1.696 Sergio Perez – 1’31.564

+1.869 Kevin Magnussen – 1’31.737

+1.991 Marcus Ericsson – 1’31.859

+1.992 Stoffel Vandoorne – 1’31.860

+2.179 Charles Leclerc – 1’32.047

+2.595 Sergey Sirotkin – 1’32.463

+2.997 Lance Stroll – 1’32.865

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

Combined practice times

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Fri/Sat diffTotal laps
1Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’31.4581’29.8171’29.868+0.05165
2Sebastian VettelFerrari1’31.4701’29.8281’30.719+0.89162
3Valtteri BottasMercedes1’31.3641’30.3801’30.781+0.40171
4Max VerstappenRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’30.7451’30.393-0.35242
5Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’31.0601’30.7511’30.452-0.29953
6Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’32.2721’30.4721’30.691+0.21967
7Nico HulkenbergRenault1’33.1041’31.2201’31.144-0.07663
8Carlos Sainz JnrRenault1’32.8851’31.6011’31.200-0.40167
9Pierre GaslyToro Rosso-Honda1’32.7791’31.2321’31.438+0.20682
10Fernando AlonsoMcLaren-Renault1’33.2231’31.2821’31.445+0.16366
11Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren-Renault1’33.3641’31.4221’31.860+0.43874
12Brendon HartleyToro Rosso-Honda1’33.4971’32.9081’31.460-1.44883
13Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’32.5161’31.5911’31.513-0.07870
14Esteban OconForce India-Mercedes1’33.7941’31.8091’31.554-0.25571
15Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’33.6621’31.8681’31.564-0.30474
16Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’32.9711’31.9691’31.737-0.23268
17Marcus EricssonSauber-Ferrari1’33.5081’32.7331’31.859-0.87471
18Charles LeclercSauber-Ferrari1’33.2781’32.3721’32.047-0.32576
19Lance StrollWilliams-Mercedes1’33.3791’32.3821’32.865+0.48364
20Sergey SirotkinWilliams-Mercedes1’33.4671’32.4741’32.463-0.01177

2018 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on “Raikkonen quickest as Vettel hits trouble”

  1. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
    7th April 2018, 14:14

    What a shame to see Williams at the bottom of the timesheet. Well, they might be running a different program, but that can’t hide the whole figure.

    1. Yeah, things are looking horible for them at the moment. They were already bad in Melbourne, but close enough to the front of the midfield to speculate that Massa, with his usual advantage over Stroll, would’ve been able to score points. However, this is not the case today, as they’re over a second behind the top 10 – on a track that used to suit them.
      They said that they adressed the car’s main weakness, the lack of downforce, over the winter. Have they thrown the baby out with the bath water by removing the car’s trademark strength, its straight line speed, without achieving a competitive level of downforce in return?

      1. when you add downforce, top speed drops

        1. Well, duh. My point is, they seem to have failed to trade their single greatest strength for a general improvement of their package. Now, the car is not only unremarkable on the straights but also subpar in the corners. This is not the typical result of adding more downforce, so they must’ve screwed up somewhere. Badly.

  2. Vettel and his garage has to be on top of their game this weekend. There are sold points on offer.

    1. I meant to say solid

  3. Impressive lap numbers being rolled out by the Honda – and good to see Hartley putting in a better time this session.

    I’m more interested in the midfield race this year – looks highly competitive!

    1. Looking forward to Q to see if a Honda powered car can get ahead of one/more Renault/McLarens. Hard to believe that STR has a better chassis.

      1. i dont think honda has qualifying modes like renault and mercedes

  4. Thanks a lot for having the wrong TV times.

    1. They seem correct to me.

  5. Williams are reaping the rewards of having possibly the 2 most (in dollar terms) sponsored pay drivers in history in one team :P has any team every had about $50million coming from the drivers? … no car development will come from this, they need Kubica in EVERY 1st practise and as race driver next year (or better still, from the next race). Pathetic situation Williams are in, they can not get better with duds in their car, money wont help if the drivers are hopeless.

    Looks good for pole battle, Mercedes will turn on party mode, but i suspect Ferrari might have this one in the bag this weekend.

    Also Toro Rosso/Mclaren looks close, but toro rosso will fall apart in qualifying with useless Honda engine (like in melbourne).

  6. Yay raikonen back to the Top of his game.

  7. I’m very interested in this statement:

    the Mercedes driver was told the team could see a “power difference” between his lap and Raikkonen’s

    I guess a “power difference” is a difference in the power used by the engines of the Ferrari and the Mercedes. Which suggests that Mercedes knows how much power Ferrari is using. That makes sense, it should be relatively easy for an expert with the right data to calculate the power used at any given moment by any car.

    So I have two questions about this:
    1. Is this idea correct? Is it possible for us to know how much power a car is using at any particular moment?
    2. If my idea is correct, where can we find that info? If it isn’t, how comes Mercedes knows about Ferrari’s power?

    1. @alonshow

      So I have two questions about this:
      1. Is this idea correct? Is it possible for us to know how much power a car is using at any particular moment?
      2. If my idea is correct, where can we find that info? If it isn’t, how comes Mercedes knows about Ferrari’s power?

      1. It is possible to calculate the power of a car using GPS data and comparison data from one’s own car, together with several other minor factors, such as wind direction, etc. However, it is not possible for us to know that. A team like Mercedes can use their own data to calculate Ferrari’s power very precisely, but the TV stations don’t have that kind of information. If they did, they could simply look at Ferrari’s data.
      2. Consequently, that info isn’t available anywhere, except for the inner circle of data analysts working for the major teams.

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