Rosberg comfortably quickest in final practice

2014 Australian Grand Prix third practice

Posted on

| Written by

Nico Rosberg ended the final practice session comfortably quickest for Mercedes.

Rosberg’s lap of 1’29.375 is the fastest seen so far this weekend and was the quickest of any driver in the session by a clear second.

The Mercedes driver enjoyed the benefit of setting a clean lap on the soft tyres, something not all of his rivals managed to do. Lewis Hamilton aborted his soft tyre run after running wide at turn nine.

That proved a problem corner for several drivers. Jenson Button went off there twice on his way to the second-fastest time in the McLaren, albeit well over a second off Rosberg’s pace.

Team mate Kevin Magnussen also went off there, as did Kimi Raikkonen.

Fernando Alonso set the third-fastest time for Ferrari ahead of Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo. The latter was the quickest of the Red Bull drivers as Sebastian Vettel was forced to abandon his soft tyre run due to a problem with his engine map. “We are concerned some settings may damage the engine,” advised race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin.

Other drivers had more serious problems. Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Gutierrez both had gearbox failures and will require replacement units, incurring five-place grid penalties.

And Romain Grosjean’s session was dogged by repeated setbacks, beginning with an engine misfire, leading to a series of increasingly terse radio conversations. “Even the pit limiter doesn’t work,” he sighed at one point.

Fears that few teams would run during the session due to reliability concerns proved unfounded. Under overcast skies the track was quickly full of cars as teams feared a rain shower was imminent. It failed to materialise, and by the end of the session the air temperature was nudging 30C. However a chance of rain remains ahead of the first qualifying session of the year.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
16Nico RosbergMercedes1’29.37515
222Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’30.7661.39120
314Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’30.8761.50111
444Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’30.9191.54413
53Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’30.9701.59513
627Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’30.9781.60316
77Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’31.1561.78112
820Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’31.2511.87622
911Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’31.6652.29017
1019Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’31.7232.34820
1126Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’31.9252.55017
121Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’32.2552.88014
1325Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’32.4173.04216
1417Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1’34.1844.80915
1599Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’34.1884.81316
1610Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’34.4135.03819
174Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1’34.7175.34215
1813Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’34.7545.37915
199Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1’36.1596.78421
2077Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes2
2121Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari2
228Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault4

Combined practice times

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Fri/Sat diffTotal laps
1Nico RosbergMercedes1’32.6041’29.7821’29.375-0.40763
2Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’29.6251’30.919+1.29451
3Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’31.8401’30.1321’30.876+0.74459
4Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’32.7931’30.3811’32.255+1.87465
5Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’32.3571’30.5101’30.766+0.25676
6Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’32.5991’30.5381’30.970+0.43277
7Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’32.9771’30.8981’31.156+0.25863
8Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’32.4031’30.92067
9Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’33.5331’31.0541’30.978-0.07672
10Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’32.8471’31.0311’31.251+0.2284
11Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’33.4461’31.0601’32.417+1.35781
12Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’32.4311’31.1191’31.723+0.60470
13Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’33.8551’31.2831’31.665+0.38277
14Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’34.2721’32.4951’31.925-0.5782
15Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’36.4451’32.3551’34.188+1.83365
16Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’35.5781’32.46835
17Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1’40.8591’33.4861’34.184+0.69850
18Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’33.64616
19Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’34.41320
20Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1’46.9221’34.7571’34.717-0.0448
21Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’34.75417
22Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1’36.15923

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

24 comments on “Rosberg comfortably quickest in final practice”

  1. Too bad I had my alarm set but I had a deep sleep and I missed the session.

  2. It’s tight between Rosberg and Hamilton. I’m going to go with Hamilton for pole and win.

  3. Definitely going to be Rosberg on pole.

    As for the win, I don’t really know. Mercedes having tyres problem.

    1. Why definitely?

    2. actually its more likely to be Lewis, cause hes only 1.6 seconds behind Nico on the slower tires that are supposed to be worth at least 2 seconds. Anything can happen, and I believe Lewis made some suspension changes before he went out on his softs.

      1. Hamilton was on softs as well, according to the live timing app.

        1. Hamilton soft tyre run was slower as he had slid on the turn (probably T11) and lost about 5 secs in the 2nd sector compared to rosbrerg (he was ahead of rosberg till that point)..

        2. He was a tenth or so up on Nico in the first sector, before going off and aborting.

        3. he was 6/10s faster on the same tires (medium) he never set a good time on the softs, probably because of the suspension changes, at least thats what I believe I heard (torsion bars) while he was in the pits before coming out on softs.

      2. Chris (@tophercheese21)
        15th March 2014, 5:38

        Yep, I’ve got hamilton for pole!

  4. Is it just me or don’t Red Bull have the mandatory cameras on the side of the car. I was going through friday’s pics and I couldn’t see them. Anybody else notice it?

    1. @mashiat
      They placed the camera on the nose, apparently.

    2. They integrated the camera’s into the nose…look closely for the small opening on the nose cone.

      1. @keithcollantine, Is that even legal? I thought that the cameras were mandatory to be on the position similar to other cars? I am probably wrong but I just want to know what makes it legal.

  5. I think that Alonso is gonna leave Ferrari at the end of the season seeing as they probably won’t win the championship this year. But at least in the current point in time he is much quicker (we’re talking a few tenths here) than Kimi.

    1. And go where? No way he could go to Red Bull, and I doubt there will be an opening next year at Mercedes. Maybe McLaren if Button decides to retire or if Magnussen disappoints, or Williams if it becomes very competitive. But my money is on him staying at Ferrari.

  6. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    15th March 2014, 4:32

    The more I see these new cars, the more I love them!
    They showed almost a full onboard lap with Massa, and it was absolutely brilliant!

  7. So Mercedes are comfortably quicker than others on quali run and as competitive as others on race runs? Hang on. Didn’t Rsoberg complain ‘tyres are finished’? Another tyre eating monster on the block or it is down to setup? Looking forward to the qualifying and hope both Ferraris are at/near the top and Marussia beat Caterham :)

  8. Both Ferrari were a second slower than their time yesterday.any idea?
    Is Ferrari on race setup?

  9. I’m no engineer so don’t fully understand, but why would Hamilton change the torsion bars so late in FP3?

    He was comfortably fastest up until that point so surely it should be a case of “if it’s not broke don’t fix it”?

    1. To stay in front in F1 You have to keep pushing the whole envelope and do it before the competition catches up. If You sit and wait and “react” to the others development steps, then You are sure to loose.

      1. Yes but why do it so late in the session where you don’t have time to see if the change works for the long runs??

  10. It would be really useful if the FP and qualifying time sheets included which tyre compound the driver was using to set their best session time.

    As an example, in FP2 Button was 0.9 secs off fastest lap and was using the medium compound tyres, whereas everyone else set their quickest laps on the soft compound.

    Is there anywhere on the web that includes this info?

Comments are closed.