Yes, Kimi seemed to have a slight edge on him through the weekend (surprising as this is a Vettel circuit), but didn't show any race winning pace.
I suppose it depends whether the rear suspension issue had been an undetected ongoing problem throughout practise and had hidden his true pace?
Seems unlikely, if it was having an effect, such that it was affecting his pace, it would definitely have shown up in telemetry.
I guess it must have been an issue. It wouldn't just break in the pits on its own, so there must have been some fatigue stress going on which would have put some flex into the system and then the break was spotted as part of a visual inspection?
I think the evidence for this claim should be: a) rosberg and hamilton both really didn't go anywhere near flat out and really coasted for 80% of the race b) red bull sunk in the fastest lap when chasing rosberg so if ricciardo could do it why not vettel? c) vettel has the race hstory in wins to show he knows the score round the track. I do think that ricciardo didn't really do anything until he was given the freedom of a free pitstop and as a result I feel he was looking back along with his team not looking forward and should consider it a chance missed really.