Berlin: Ferrari's Carlos Sainz led final practice for the Singapore Formula One Grand Prix while Ferrari while Max Verstappen drew a little closer to the top ahead of qualifying later on Saturday despite still complaining about "unacceptable" problems.
Saint completed a Ferrari sweep of the practice sessions when he clocked 1 minute 32.065 seconds on the 5.063-kilometres Marina Bay street course.
Mercedes' George Russell was the fraction of .069 of a second behind in second, and Lando Norris third for McLaren.
Verstappen, who along with team-mate Sergio Perez had failed to make the top six on Friday and said their showing was worse than expected,finished .313 back in fourth.
That was closer to the top than the previous day but Red Bull's struggles on the twisting course continued as he named the car"unacceptable" and fumed: "I'm just struggling for rear grip. If I'm going to compete in drifting I might win the race."
Red Bull have won all 14 season races and 15 in a row in all, and Verstappen is on a run of 10 straight victories - both F1 records.
But Verstappen and his team appear to face an uphill battle to keep these streaks alive on one of the courses where the Dutchman is yet to win and had to settle for seventh last year.
Verstappen is also trying to get one step closer to a third straightworld title. He currently leads the standings by 145 points over Perez and if everything goes his way, he could seal the title withsix races to spare next weekend in Japan.— dpa
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