Practice 3: Vettel and Webber set the pace

Sebastian Vettel ended the final free practice session fastest of all

Jul.10 (YallaF1.com) Red Bull Racing and Ferrari dominated the third and final free practice session of the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone with Sebastian Vettel again going fastest of all as the times edged closer to going below the 1 minute 30 seconds mark on the new circuit layout.

Mark Webber ended the session second best

With 45 minutes on the clock Vettel went fastest of anyone so far this with a 1 minute 30.958 seconds lap which went unchallenged, but his session ended with him limping back to the pits as in the dying moments of the German ran wide at Abbey, the nose cone awry and the front wing scraping the track surface.

Making it a Red Bull clean sweep ahead of qualifying was Mark Webber who ended second fastest after setting a lap 0.034 seconds short of his team mate

Clearly the bumps, which most drivers remarked about, will be a factor in the race which looks set not to be merely a test of speed but also a test of durability. This may provide a flicker of hope to Red Bull’s rivals who have no answer to the devastating speed of the RB6 at Silverstone.

Fernando Alonso was best of the rest

Enjoying one of their better weekends, so far, are Ferrari whose Fernando Alonso was best of the rest and only 0.143 seconds off Vettel’s best which made him third fastest in the session with his team mate Felipe Massa not far off his pace with the fifth fastest time.

The team pointed out on Twitter, “Fernando could not set a time with soft tyres as we had a water leak and we called him in immediately in order to check the car and avoid any risk.”

Splitting the Ferrari’s was Nico Rosberg (Mercedes GP) who was also enjoying a revival of sorts and was the fastest Merc powered driver. His team mate Michael Schumacher ended the session eighth, a quarter second down on his younger team mate.

Nico Rosberg was fastest of the Mercedes brigade

Robert Kubica (Renault) was sixth on the timing screens when the chequered flag dropped while team mate Vitaly Petrov was down in 11th.

Big news prior to the third and was that McLaren have ditched their Silvesrtone upgrades and were frantically getting their MP4/25 to a Turkey set-up spec. Lewis Hamilton was fastest of the two local heroes, setting the seventh fastest time with Button 12th.

Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa enjoyed a good session and will be encouraged with his ninth best lap time in the final free practice which would allow him to indulge Q3 ambitions. Team mate Kamui Kobayashi was 14th fastest.

Rubens Barrichello was fastest of the Cosworth drivers

Rounding up the top ten and fastest of the Cosworth powered brigade was Rubens Barrichello, with his rookie team mate Nico Hulkenberg 13th on the timing screens.

Adrian Sutil was fastest of the Force India pair with the 15th best time while his team mate Vitantonio Liuzzi was 18th on timing screens. The team reported a minor gearbox problem which curtailed Sutil’s session but made no mention of Liuzzi’s lowly position.

Next up were the Toro Rosso duo of Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari, 17th and 18th respectively.

Heikki Kovalainen was best of the new team drivers

Best of the new team drivers, as he has been all weekend so far, was Heikki Kovalainen with the 19th best time, 3.3 seconds off Vettel’s best, while his Lotus team mate Jarno Trulli was again dogged with gearbox problems which saw his rear wheels lock up with quarter of an hour to go in the session. He ended 21st.

Splitting the Lotus pair was Virgin Racing’s Lucas di Grassi in 20th with his team mate Timo Glock only managing six laps before his car returned to the team’s pit garage with the 23rd best time.

Hispania Racing’s Karun Chandhok  was 22nd fastest while his newly instated team mate Sakon Yamamoto clearly struggled and was anchored to the bottom of the timing sheets well off the pace.

Practice 3 – 10 July 2010