Nico Rosberg was the fastest in the third practice session this morning for the Malaysian Grand Prix with team mate Lewis Hamiltn second quickest for Mercedes.
Rosberg set his time of 1:39.690 on his qualifying simulation on a set of medium compound tyres towards the end of the session. Hamilton was 0.184s off the pace with a 1:39.874. Hamilton was struggling with the brakes locking up on him. “The brakes are all over the place today,” he said over the radio to Pete Bonnington his race engineer.
Kimi Raikkonen finished 3rd fastest for Ferrari after a puncture stopped his early session work. Raikkonen had a bit of a moment with his former team mate, Lotus’ Romain Grosjean early on in the session. The Frenchman looked as though he was allowing though, a little hesitation from Raikkonen then made Grosjean turn into the corner, the same time Raikkonen decided to go through. Right after that Raikkonen was informed of a puncture on his rear left. The puncture, however, was not as a result of the incident with Grosjean.
Sebastian Vettel finished the session in P4 with the Williams pair of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas finishing in 5th and 6th respectively. Daniel Ricciardo finished in P7 for Red Bull.
The Toro Rosso pair were 8th and 9th with Carlos Sainz ahead of Max Verstappen. Verstappen had locking up issues throughout the session saying that the car was worse than yesterday. Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber rounded out the top 10 1.510s off the pace of Rosberg’s time up front.
Grosjean ended his session 11th fastest ahead of his team mate Pastor Maldonado in 12th. Daniil Kvyat in the other Red Bull finished 13th fastest with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg in 14th.
Fernando Alonso in the McLaren had another good session. He seems comfortable in the car but McLaren are still far off the pace with Alonso in 15th and Button in 18th. Sergio Perez and Felipe Nasr split the two McLarens with the two Manor drivers Roberto Mehri and Will Stevens in P19 and P20. There is some concern whether Manor will make the 107% qualifying time in order to race on Sunday. “It all depends on Mercedes and how fast they go.” said Team Principal John Booth.
FP3 Classiciation:
Photo by courtesy Pirelli
