Home favourite Felipe Massa is flying at Interlagos, that Williams looking hooked up around this place. The Brazilian clocks a 1:11.559 to go quickest of all.

Jean-Eric Vergne gets lost down at Turn One, much like Toro Rosso's Max Vertsappen did yesterday. The Frenchman heads into the run-off after out-braking himself and then navigates the escape roads behind the barriers before finding a path back onto the track.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Interlagos

"Kimi Raikkonen had what a Ferrari insider described as his best Friday of the year, setting third fastest time overall, 0.426secs faster than Fernando Alonso, who lost half the session to a massive failure of the very high mileage engine he was running. Raikkonen was generally being much happier with the car than he has been for most of the year.

"He had four quite big moments, including three spins and one off-track moment at Juncao, but this was just him making mistakes, rather than signifying any kind of problem with the car. On overall pace, reading behind the headline times, Ferrari reckoned they were fourth and fifth fastest behind the two Mercedes and Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull, and ahead of Williams. Whether they can stay there is another matter, of course."

Lewis Hamilton loses the rear end as he brakes for Turn One, the Mercedes driver spinning round and into the run-off. He keeps the engine running and gets going again but those tyres are done.

Williams' Valtteri Bottas and McLaren's Kevin Magnussen are trading times at the top, with them tumbling down into the 1m12s. Bottas leads with a 1:12.097, with Magnussen six tenths further back.

Big lock-up for Lewis Hamilton at Turn Eight and it looks like he's flat-spotted those tyres. Still 45 minutes of this session to go.

Mercedes:, external No keen eyes required to notice @LewisHamilton & @nico_rosberg propping up the times. It's almost as if they're simulating something...

Kevin Magnussen moves to the top of the timesheets with a 1:13.016, three tenths quicker than Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne. Lewis Hamilton is lapping in the 1m15s, while his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg is in the high 1m14s. Both on the medium tyres.

Image source, Tom Clarkson on Twitter

Daniel Ricciardo isn't in the car yet, but he's left a honey badger cuddly toy on the cockpit of his Red Bull to keep it company.

Jean-Eric Vergne sets the early pace, the Frenchman clocking a 1:15.117 in the Toro Rosso. He has yet to sign a deal for next season, but has said this weekend that he is feeling more confident about his future in the sport now than he was a month ago.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Interlagos

"On Friday, Red Bull looked like they might be able to give Mercedes a race of it this weekend. Daniel Ricciardo might have been the best part of a second off the Mercedes on single lap pace, but he was at least as quick on the race runs later in the session. It was hard to get a proper reading from these because they were affected by two red flags.

"Ricciardo's peak lap time on the race simulation runs on the preferred race tyre, the medium, was actually 0.4s faster than Nico Rosberg on peak lap time and did two laps quicker than any managed by Rosberg, who was faster than Lewis Hamilton. Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan said: 'If it's dry and the race is as we might expect, then we'll probably watch the Mercedes. If you throw in a bit of inclement weather, a few unexpected pit stops, we'll do our utmost to finish at the front, yes."

Image source, Getty Images

Mercedes duo Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton both leave the garage at the same time for their first run of the day.

Pastor Maldonado, Romain Grosjean, Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas are among the first cars to head out and about.

Ben Edwards
BBC F1 commentator

"Light breeze pushing the cars down the start finish straight this morning, but looks like this session will be dry. Track 33C."

Let third practice begin!

Hours after the Marussia F1 Team went out of business, Caterham announced that they have a plan to stay afloat and race in Abu Dhabi - and it involves your money. Yep, the Leafield team - who missed the race in Austin and aren't in Sao Paulo this weekend are aiming to raise £2.35m using crowdfunding by Friday, 14 November. And so far, it's going quite well. This morning, the team said, external they have raised £500,000 in 24 hours.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Interlagos

"McLaren did not have a good Friday, so much so that Jenson Button was moved to say: 'We need a dry FP3 because at the moment we're nowhere.' Button added: 'We know the reasons we're not competitive and it's easy to put them right.' Among their biggest problems was a lack of straight-line speed, and that they did not understand. 'The only thing we find quite strange is our speed on the straight is quite far off,' Button said. 'To go that fast we would have to take a lot of downforce off and we're losing a lot of time. We need to solve that.'"

We've also got a very special Classic F1 programme coming your way next week with legendary commentator Murray Walker your host.

It's a one-hour show focused on title deciders and having watched it already, I can tell you it's a cracker.

When can you see it? Next Wednesday at 21:30 BST on the red button, this very website and the BBC iPlayer. What a night of F1 you have in store.

BBC Radio 5 live

The World Championship is going down to the wire, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg vying for the title. So BBC Radio 5 live have planned a special show which will count down the sport's greatest final day title showdowns.

Jennie Gow will be joined by BBC Radio 5 live's F1 correspondent James Allen, former driver John Watson and journalist Maurice Hamilton, to discuss their most memorable title deciding moments.

Listen on Wednesday 12 November from 20:00 GMT.

Image source, Getty Images

Now to the important question of the day. Just a week after Daniel Ricciardo's Austin inspired facial hair, I'm asking whether this beard, modelled by Fernando Alonso, is the best Formula 1 has ever seen? In fact, let's open it out - which driver, across the decades of F1, has had the best facial hair?

Tweet us using the #bbcf1 hashtag, text 81111 or leave a comment on the BBC Sport Facebook page.