On Friday, Red Bull appeared to have a handy car around Interlagos, but on the second day of the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend Ferrari and Mercedes turned up the wick and hogged the top four places of the timing screen at the end of FP3 on Saturday in Sao Paulo.
Sebastian Vettel powered around the four-km venue in a best time of 1:07.948, the only driver to dip into the 67 seconds zone, the Ferrari driver two tenths up on Lewis Hamilton in second, who was three tenths up on Valtteri Bottas in the sister Mercedes.
Hamilton seemed out of sorts during the one-hour session, his Mercedes smoking at one point and the world champion at times running slowly on track.
Just over half a second down on the top time was Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari, with the Red Bull pair a quarter second shy of Vettel, with Max Verstappen fifth and a tenth up on his teammate Daniel Ricciardo in sixth.
Haas continued to top the Best of the Rest, with Kevin Magnussen seventh, 1.1 seconds off the pace-setter and Romain Grosjean a tenth down in eighth.
Pierre Gasly found the sweet spot in the Toro Rosso, ending ninth-fastest and half a second faster than teammate Brendon Hartley down in 16th.
Sauber's Charles Leclerc rounded out the top ten. With five of the six Ferrari powered cars in the top ten it appears that Autodromo Carlos Pace suits the Prancing Horse.
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