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.