Antonelli moves Mercedes to the top of the order in Bahrain FP3 at Sepang

Kimi Antonelli moved Mercedes to the top of the order in final practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, setting the fastest time of the weekend ahead of Max Verstappen.

Mercedes had been well adrift of the leaders after Friday, with neither driver able to complete a competitive lap and both struggling badly with degradation over their long runs.

Work completed overnight solved at least one of those problems, with both Antonelli and Russell competitive after their first flying laps on softs after remaining garaged for almost half the hour-long session.

Antonelli then found considerably more time with his second attempt, lowering the weekend benchmark to 1m36.302 — more than 1.2s quicker than Friday’s best time — to lead the field by 0.278s, including with a purple middle sector.

Russell couldn’t follow him up the order on his second lap, in part due to him failing to set a personal best time in the first sector, costing him around 0.2s.

The margin to his teammate allowed Verstappen and Red Bull Racing stablemate Isack Hadjar to slot into second and third.

Verstappen was 0.278s off the pace but quickest in the first sector, while Hadjar, who complained of unpredictable rear instability early in the session, was 0.558s off the pace.

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were closely matched in fifth and sixth, both just over 0.7s off the pace and 0.1s adrift of Russell. Hamilton felt the lap had been “pretty decent” except for the fact his tires were “not great”.

Leclerc completed only one soft run to devote time to a long run at the start of the session, completing 12 laps — albeit with a break between them — on the hard tire. He will be the only driver to have done any running on the hardest compound before the grand prix, with all his rivals keeping both sets in reserve at this high-degradation circuit.

Lando Norris was a further 0.1s back for McLaren, his time bolstered by a purple final sector, while Oscar Piastri was another 0.2s adrift, almost all of which was in the final split aced by his teammate.

Both, however, used only one set of softs apiece.

Franco Colapinto led the midfield in ninth, 1.6s off the pace, with Arvid Lindblad 1.8s adrift in 10th.

Gabriel Bortoleto followed in 11th as the first of a five-pack gaggle of cars split by 0.062s comprising Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon and Liam Lawson.

Nico Hulkenberg was more than 2s off the pace in 16th ahead of Oliver Bearman, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll and Alex Albon, while Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez were 3.6s and 3.9s off the pace respectively.

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