Lewis Hamilton led the way for the third session in a row in Bahrain, showing just how much pace that Mercedes has. He, and teammate Nico Rosberg, were half a second up on the rest - although it was a slightly mixed up session that saw Sergio Pérez finish in third.

Teams looked to be saving their cars a little, as the number of laps completed throughout the session averaged at about 13 per driver. Sebastian Vettel made difficult work of his hour, spinning off track and finding himself unable to get the car going again. Frantic work at the Red Bull garage to recover the situation, but Vettel finished in the penultimate position on the timesheets.