[Jody Barton]

On single lap pace I expect Lewis will close that gap up to Bottas, prior to his "off" it was nip and tuck between the two of them and Hamilton clearly was unhappy with his set up, whereas Bottas seemed spot on. So I guess he has less work to do, but also less time to find. I would also say on ultimate pace unless Ferrari were seriously sandbagging Mercedes have probably at least 0.4 in hand over the red cars. So I expect an all Silver car front row come close of qualifying barring disasters.

On race pace... it's a Mercedes 1-2. Hamilton had roughly 1.1 seconds in hand over Bottas on the mediums, but we didn't get to see a Soft run from him, although I doubt Mercedes will touch the Softs in the race, they'll qualify on the Medium, then switch to the hard and just drive off with it. So on race pace I think Hamilton might shade it, given Bottas was 0.9 seconds a lap ahead of Max, who was 1 second or thereabouts ahead of Vettel... and... Lando bloomin' Norris!!! What the hell was that all about? You then had Leclerc and Gasly showing up awfully with Sainz looking like he might be in amongst their race pace. I think the McLaren pace must come with the health warning of not knowing the fuel loads nor the engine modes. However, if they're running normally like they have all season then today was genuinely encouraging for them. However, I think they'll just prove best of the rest this weekend, they might pick off Gasly and maybe Leclerc if they don't sort his set up out, but it's a long shot.

As to Vettel spinning out? No. He'll have a tidy weekend I think, and I'd put him third ahead of Max. Don't think there will be any turn 1 incident this year either.