Hamilton leads Mercedes 1-2 in final Russian GP practice

As predicted, and right on script, Valtteri Bottas leads the Friday practice times while the track gets rubbered in, and then his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton destroys him the rest of the weekend.

Hamilton turned a lap of 1m33.279s to top the final practice for the Russian GP by a whopping 0.776s over Bottas.

So, advantage Hamilton? Both he and Bottas left time out there, and it could really come down to the smallest of margins and who can nail their line through a couple of corners. Hamilton is looking mighty through the middle sector, but definitely has work to do in the opening corners.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was 3rd quick for McLaren  while a surprising Esteban Ocon was 4th for Renault.

Sergio Perez rounded out the top-5 for Racing Point.

Plenty of drivers didn’t get a clean lap when Grosjean spun in turn 15 while they were on their fast lap, plenty left time out there. All of which bodes very well for qualifying later on.

Practice 3 Results