Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari forged ahead in a cold final practice session which was largely dominated by another engine failure for Daniel Ricciardo.
The Australian’s morning was already delayed by a small gearbox problem at the start, when fixed the Red Bull driver completed just four laps before a suspected turbo problem caused his Renault power unit to go pop on the back straight.
Already on the limit in terms of batteries for the season, this second problem in as many races is making the prospect of penalties loom large sooner rather than later.
At the front, it was the Scuderia which claimed the advantage going into qualifying as Vettel’s 1m33.018s gave him almost half a second over Kimi Raikkonen in second.
Mercedes struggled in the cold conditions with Lewis Hamilton struggling under braking for the Turn 14 hairpin and going for a spin on the wet Astroturf on the exit of Turn 10.
That left the world champion a second down in fifth as teammate Valtteri Bottas was three-quarters of a second behind the leading Ferrari in third.
Max Verstappen complained of a loss of power at the top end of the engine rev range after Ricciardo’s failure and would lose six-tenths relative to the Italian team on the back straight with around an 18km deficit in top speed.
The Dutchman would split the two Silver Arrows in fourth, however.
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Kevin Magnussen would lead the midfield in sixth for Haas, interestingly setting his best time on the Soft compound tyre as opposed to the Ultrasoft. The Dane would lead the two Force Indias as they enjoyed their most competitive session of 2018 in seventh and eighth.
Carlos Sainz was ninth for Renault as Sergey Sirotkin surprised by finishing 10th in the Williams.
Both McLaren’s and both Toro Rosso’s sat outside the top 10 in what may turn out to be an unrepresentative session while Romain Grosjean’s difficult weekend continued as his rear brakes caught fire in the Haas, leaving the Frenchman bottom of the timings.