FP3 in Austin: Mercedes unbeatable

Once again, the Mercedes pair were in a league of their own with Williams driver Felipe Massa 1.107s adrift in third place and Valtteri Bottas fourth. Fernando Alonso completed a lap on the ragged edge to go fifth fastest, but was more than 1.6s off the pace of the Mercedes pair. His Ferrari swung into a wild slide coming out of the first corner, which cost him time through the rest of the opening sector, and he ran clear off the track at the penultimate corner but still held it together on the exit.

Daniel Ricciardo was sixth fastest for Red Bull as team-mate Sebastian Vettel propped up the bottom of the timesheets. The world champion is expected to complete just one lap in qualifying as a complete change of his car’s power unit means he will be forced to start from the pit lane in Sunday’s race. His running in FP3 was therefore focused on heavy-fuel race runs rather than perfecting a qualifying set-up.

Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps
1 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:37.107 13
2 6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:37.990 0.883 15
3 19 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1:38.214 1.107 19
4 77 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1:38.437 1.330 20
5 14 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:38.727 1.620 13
6 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:38.927 1.820 16
7 27 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1:38.960 1.853 20
8 99 Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1:39.000 1.893 22
9 7 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:39.143 2.036 17
10 22 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:39.241 2.134 22
11 20 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1:39.335 2.228 19
12 13 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1:39.448 2.341 18
13 8 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1:39.561 2.454 21
14 11 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1:39.582 2.475 21
15 26 Daniil Kvyat STR-Renault 1:39.688 2.581 19
16 21 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1:40.208 3.101 22
17 25 Jean-Eric Vergne STR-Renault 1:41.443 4.336 12
18 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:43.765 6.658 25