Barcelona FP3: Hamilton raises the bar as Russell crashes

With ten minutes remaining in FP3, Williams driver George Russell lost control and rear-ended the tyre barrier through Turn 4. The session was not restarted.

Russell reported over the radio: "All good. Just lost it, came from nowhere."

After a Friday in Barcelona that revealed little, FP3 was expected to provide a better indication of what to expect for qualifying but did little to clarify the exact pecking order which will only be revealed in quali with everyone dialled up to the maximum.

Nevertheless, Hamilton's best lap was near perfect and broke the timing beam at 1:16.568, seven tenths faster than the best effort yesterday and a half second up on Charles Leclerc in the fastest Ferrari who, in turn, was a couple of hundredths up on championship leader Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes.

Fourth fastest was Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel with less than a tenth separating the trio from second to fourth. Close between them but far off Hamilton's best, suggesting the Briton has raised the bar as the campaign hits Europe for the first time this season.

Well up the order again, and apparently narrowing the gap to the Big Two, were the Haas pair with Romain Grosjean in fifth, six tenths off the prime time and three tenths up on teammate Kevin Magnussen in sixth.

The American team have unlocked much-needed performance from this latest spec-package which reportedly has does not have the Ferrari engine upgrade that the Reds have rolled out for this weekend.

On the flip side, the Honda-powered teams have had a couple of days strewn with niggles but expectations were high as all the Red Bulls and Toro Rossos had the latest spec PU bolted to the back of their cars for the first time in FP3.

Perhaps they were running them in or whatever is done to bring new engines up to speed, but there were no fireworks as Max Verstappen ended seventh and nearly a second down on the top time.

Alex Albon was eighth in the Toro Rosso, albeit three tenths off the Dutchman's best effort. The latter's Red Bull teammate Pierre Gasly continued to struggle, ending 14th and 1.1 seconds slower.

Kimi Raikkonen was ninth in the Alfa Romeo, with Carlos Sainz rounding out the top ten and fastest of the Renault brigade who are in deep trouble or keeping their powder dry ahead of qualifying which, no matter what will provide no hiding place for underperformance.

Nico Hulkenberg was 12th, 1.8 seconds off the benchmark pace, with Daniel Ricciardo 2.4 seconds adrift.

Similarly out of shape were the Racing Point duo of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll, 13th and 15th respectively, two seconds away from where they dream they could be.