Tag: fp3

Mercedes dominate and Hamilton sets the pace in FP3

Mercedes continued to show their excellent form during the final practice session ahead of this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets a tenth of a second ahead of team mate Nico Rosberg, with Checo Perez in the third spot for Force India, a half-second country mile behind them.

Despite spending the first half of the session in the Williams garage, Valterri Bottas and Felipe Massa managed to secure the 4th and 5th spots for the Williams team, showing a good improvement in their performance.

Jenson Button managed 6th place for the McLaren team and Fernando Alonso secured 7th in the first non-Mercedes powered car, for Ferrari. The Ferrari drivers seemed to be struggling a great deal with rear grip around the track. While many drivers were caught out by the tail wind around T11, the Ferrari drivers seemed to be getting to know the outskirts a little too well around there.

Rounding out the Top 10 were Nico Hulkenberg for Force India, Toro Rosso’s Daniel Kvyat and Kevin Magnussen for McLaren.

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel ended his session early – without the opportunity to head out on soft tyres, after spinning off at the exit of Turn 2 and stalling his car in the gravel trap.

Conditions during the third practice session were far from those we can expect during qualifying and the race tomorrow now that Bahrain has joined the elite night race hosts. Temperatures drop considerably in the evenings at the desert circuit so expect a few surprises from qualifying later this afternoon.

Who can catch the Mercedes drivers to steal the pole position for tomorrow’s Bahrain Grand Prix? Right now, it would seem absolutely nobody can!

Time sheets and full tyre info below. Please join us later on @F1_Madness for live commentary and chats during qualifying for the Bahrain GP.

FP3 Timesheet:

Tyre info:

April 5, 2014
Rosberg leads FP3, Mercedes domination continues

Mercedes sent another strong message to their rivals with Nico Rosberg the messenger during FP3 in Australia ahead of qualifying this morning. Rosberg finished the session a crazy 1.3 seconds ahead of 2nd placed Jenson Button, with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso finishing the session in 3rd place. Lewis Hamilton finished the session in fourth place but could very easily have made it a 1-2 for Ferrari, had he not run wide at Turn 9 on his second flying lap.

The Mercedes W05 was clearly the fastest car out there on both tyre compounds with both Rosberg and Hamilton comfortably fastest in earlier FP3 running.

Lotus’ woes seem far from over with Romain Grosjean complaining about his engine misfiring, and Pastor Maldonado stopping out on track less than a minute before the chequered flag came out on the session.

Kimi Raikkonen also continued his struggle with his car’s balance, running off the track on more than one occasion and finishing the session in 7th, a full 1.7 seconds off the pace.

Spots of rain threatened just before the green flag on the FP3 session, and a gusty wind made its presence known around the track. Heavy rain is heading for the track just ahead of qualifying which could really impact on how the session will play out.

As always you can join us on Twitter (@F1_Madness) at 7:30am for qualifying build up as well as for live updates throughout the session. We’ll also be around for some post qualifying chat – so do join in!

Here is the full timesheet for FP3:

Photo credit: Mercedes

March 15, 2014
F1 2013: Free Practice 3 Report – Brazilian GP

Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber topped the timing sheets at the end of the third free practice session ahead of the 2013 Brazilian grand prix.

The rain soaked session took quite a while to spark into life and it was Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez that topped the timing sheets in the initial part of the third free practice session.

Condition around Interlagos were incredibly tricky given the circuit’s poor drainage system which led to a big amount of standing water on the circuit. Nevertheless, few drivers ventured out in the wet condition for the sole reason of saving the green side-walled Intermediate tyres for the all important qualifying session.

Eventually conditions improved enough for the intermediate tyres to be tried out and Mark Webber was the first of the drivers to do so. Webber seemed to get the best of condition and set the overall fastest time of the session. Sebastian Vettel ended in session in 17th place while Mercedes and Ferrari ended their program of running ten minutes before the chequered flag signalled the end of practice. Jenson Button did not set a representative time.

Full times below.

November 23, 2013
2013 Silverstone F1 Free Practice 3 Results

Free Practice 3 took place under dry, but windy conditions today at Silverstone.

Nico Rosberg went fastest again with a time of 1.31.487, ever so slightly ahead of his team mate Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes team are looking strong for a pole position – and possibly even a front row lock out in today’s qualifying session.

Sergio Perez brought out a red flag with 40 minutes remaining in the session, following what McLaren MD, Jonathan Neale called an “instantaneous failure” of his left rear tyre. The tyre literally just came off and Perez came over his team radio saying “the tyre exploded”. There was exstensive damage to his car but the McLaren team amazingly got him back out on track with 9 mins left of the session.

Felipe Massa sat out the end of the session while his team made a “precautionary” engine change.

Here are the results for the FP3 session:

June 29, 2013
Mark Webber fastest in a 30 minute FP3 in Canada

The third practice session in Canada was delayed for half an hour before getting started due to barrier repairs that needed to be completed before the session could begin. Due to the fact that there needs to be a 2 hour gap between FP3 and Qualifying, the practice session was shortened and drivers only had 30 mins to run.

The track was also damp, so the first slicks only made an appearance with just over 5 mins to go in the session. Finally with 2 minutes left of the session, all drivers were out on track.

It was Mark Webber who went fastest in third practice after the final dash with a time of 1.17.895 followed closely by Adrian Sutil and Lewis Hamilton.

Here is the results timesheet after FP3 in Canada:

June 8, 2013
Monaco Grand Prix FP3 Results – Nico Rosberg makes it 3 in a row

The third practice session at Monaco was pretty eventful. Things started off rather slowly but quickly the session became very incident filled.

Felipe Massa took a massive hit – something went wrong on his Ferrari and he smacked the left barrier entering into Sainte Devote, then went on into the barrier straight ahead. His Ferrari is severely damaged so Ferrari have a tough job getting the car ready before Qualifying later this afternoon. It is still unsure what went wrong, but speculation points to either a steering, or throttle failure.

Sutil was the next guy to take a hit. Damage to his Force India is also pretty severe so they’re another team who probably won’t be having a lunch break.

1 minute before the end of the session Romain Grosjean also smacked his car in Sainte Devote, adding Lotus to the no-lunch-break-teams.

It was Nico Rosberg who stamped his absolute authority on the session though, finishing 6 tenths faster than Grosjean in second place. His Mercedes is going to be tough to beat during qualifying but rain could still be a factor.

Here are the Monaco Grand Prix FP3 Results:

May 25, 2013
Spanish F1 Grand Prix FP3 Results Timesheet

Felipe Massa went fastest during the final practice session in Barcelona this morning. He inched just 0.006 seconds ahead of Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen.

The biggest losers this session were certainly McLaren who seem to really be struggling despite all the upgrades they brought along to Barcelona so it really seems like it’s back to the drawing board for them.

Here is the full Spanish F1 Grand Prix FP3 Results Timesheet:

May 11, 2013