Lewis Hamilton put a little daylight between himself and his rivals after leading Practice 3 by over a quarter of a second from Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The world champion would post another new lap record of 1m37.627s on the UltraSoft tyre around the Yas Marina Circuit as the Silver Arrows seized the initiative over Ferrari.
Indeed, after being separated by just 0.017s at one stage after the first series of low-fuel runs, Kimi Raikkonen would be over half a second slower than Hamilton after his second effort in third for the Scuderia with Sebastian Vettel fourth.
Red Bull would continue to toil a little but are at least within sight of Ferrari with Daniel Ricciardo less than two-tenths behind his former teammate in fifth.
Across the garage, Max Verstappen’s balance issues continued with the Dutchman unhappy with his RB13 but there is a risk of changing something too much with conditions in the daytime unrepresentative as they will be in qualifying and the race.
McLaren’s late-season surge continues with Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne leading the midfield in seventh and eighth, that is despite a tricky session for the Belgian who repeated his high-speed slide into the run-off area at Turn 20 and was involved in a moment on track with Nico Hulkenberg.
The battle for places in Q3 is incredibly close, however, with just 0.355s covering the double world champion in P7 to Esteban Ocon in P13 for Force India. In fact, Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez, Felipe Massa and Hulkenberg would all set their best time in the 1:39.3s bracket.
The two Haas cars led what appears to be the third tier with Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean in 14th and 15th which would translate into the final two positions in Q2 in qualifying.
Pascal Wehrlein continues his solid weekend out-pacing Sauber teammate Marcus Ericsson by four-tenths of a second in 16th place with the Swede in 19th.
Lance Stroll’s struggles over a single lap continued with a 1.2-second margin between himself and Williams partner Massa as the Canadian floundered in 17th.
Finally, the difficult end of the year for Toro Rosso continues with Pierre Gasly only 18th and Brendon Hartley bottom of the timings and set to start at the back anyway thanks to his engine grid penalty.