MONTE CARLO Ferraris German driver Sebastian Vettel was the fastest in the third free practice on Saturday for the Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2016.
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It was another frustrating afternoon for the reigning world champ, whose auto stalled in the final part of qualifying, leaving him with just one chance to set a fast time.
Ultimately he ended up third fastest – 0.320s down on Daniel Ricciardo’s pole position lap and 0.151s off team-mate Nico Rosberg – but felt his Mercedes had the pace to beat Red Bull.
There was no such stress for Ricciardo, whose beaming smile contrasted with Hamilton’s despondent mood in the post-race news conference and the Australian driver will be confident of his fourth career win – having won three races in his debut season for Red Bull in 2014.
With his chassis sustaining damage in the crash, Red Bull have opted to start the 18-year-old from the pitlane in the spare chassis, which will be built up on Saturday evening and could allow the team to gamble on a wet weather setup for the race.
“We started well, the confidence was there and, then, I think we struggled to extract the grip”, he said. “So we’ll see. maybe it rains. that’d be pretty wonderful!” “It’s OK, the pace is in the vehicle; I struggled a bit to get it out”.
You won’t like Daniel Ricciardo when he’s angry.
The Dutchman was going through the swimming pool section when he lost control and his suspension seemed to break, sending him flying over the kerb and straight into the wall, heavily damaging his front wing. I turned in too early and it was all wrong.
Hamilton emerged for Q3 – the final phase of qualifying – but was told to stop at the end of the pit-lane with a fuel leak issue before his auto was recovered by his Mercedes mechanics.
That has been a familiar feeling for Hamilton with engine problems this season.
His mechanics sprinted over to his vehicle, rolling it back to the garage.
“I was just accelerating and then I had losses of power all the way down the pit lane, ” Hamilton said, describing what happened.
“I knew coming into the weekend I had a shot at it, ” he said.
Kimi Raikkonen already faced an uphill battle in his bid to win the Monaco Grand Prix before Ferrari failed to get the best out of its Pirelli tyres in qualifying.
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Raikkonen qualified sixth, although he will drop five places after a penalty for a gearbox change.
