Vettel leads Ferrari one-two in wet-dry FP3

Sebastian Vettel led a Ferrari one-two in a wet-dry final practice session for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, having posted a late flying lap on Pirelli's Ultrasoft tyre.

The German was one of just a handful of drivers who completed a lap on slick tyres in drying conditions, after heavy rain on Saturday morning left the Albert Park circuit wet for the start of the final 60-minute session. As conditions improved late on, a number of drivers posted quick times on Pirelli's fastest avaliable compound at Melbourne, leading to an unrepresentative timesheet heading into qualifying. 

Vettel's late flier on a 1:26.067s put him top by nearly two and a half seconds from Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen, while Sauber's Marcus Ericsson shot up to third in the closing minutes. Eight seconds covered the top 10 drivers, with the majority of the field setting their best times on intermediates, led by Red Bull's Max Verstappen in fourth. 

Carlos Sainz went quickest overall with just three minutes left in the session but ended up fifth for Renault, ahead of home-favourite Daniel Ricciardo - who is set to serve a three-place grid penalty for a red flag discrepency in FP2. 

Next up came the Mercedes duo led by Valtteri Bottas in seventh, who had held the fastest time with 15 minutes left on the clock. Teammate and reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton, who topped both sessions on Friday, was a tenth further back from Bottas and managed just seven laps after a start-up issue in the garage forced Mercedes to change his steering wheel.

It was an encouraging session for McLaren, with both Stoffel Vandoorne and Fernando Alonso sitting third and fourth respectively and just a tenth off the Mercedes pair prior to the dry final stages, before both ultimately dropped down to ninth and 10th. 

The Toro Rosso's were line-a-stern in 11th and 12th, headed by Pierre Gasly, while Sergey Sirotkin outpaced Williams teammate Lance Stroll by nearly half a second in 13th. The Canadian spent the majority of final practice in the garage with a gearbox issue, which was fixed in time for him to head out on track with around 20 minutes remaining.

Romain Grosjean was unable to replicate Haas' impressive Friday pace in 15th, with Sauber's Charles Leclerc putting himself between the Haas duo, while Nico Hulkenberg finished last of the runners who set a time. Force India opted not to run its cars in the tricky conditions, meaning Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez propped up the standings in 19th and 20th. 

AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX - FP3 RESULTS