Hamilton ahead again as brake trouble delays Rosberg

2014 United States Grand Prix third practice

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Lewis Hamilton completed a clean sweep of practice sessions at the Circuit of the Americas by heading the final hour of running ahead of qualifying.

The Mercedes driver lowered the best time of the weekend to a 1’37.107 but team mate Nico Rosberg was over eight tenths of a second slower. Rosberg was twice called into the pits to have his brakes examined as the team addressed an offset in performance between the two sides of his car.

It wasn’t plain sailing for Hamilton either, who spun his car at turn 12 towards the end of his running on the medium tyres.

Williams showed their hand in final practice but their quickest driver, Felipe Massa, was well over a second slower than Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas ensured the Grove cars were decisively best of the rest.

Fernando Alonso was fifth-quickest for Ferrari while Kimi Raikkonen, ninth, was troubled by a vibration on his car.

Daniel Ricciardo put Red Bull sixth. Sebastian Vettel concentrated on his race set-up in the other car, as his pit lane start penalty means he has nothing to gain from refining his one-lap pace.

Both Force Indias made it into the top ten but the fastest McLaren was no higher than tenth. Tyre warm-up in the cool conditions of Saturday morning proved a particular problem for Jenson Button.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’37.10713
26Nico RosbergMercedes1’37.9900.88315
319Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’38.2141.10719
477Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’38.4371.33020
514Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’38.7271.62013
63Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’38.9271.82016
727Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’38.9601.85320
899Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’39.0001.89322
97Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’39.1432.03617
1022Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’39.2412.13422
1120Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’39.3352.22819
1213Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’39.4482.34118
138Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’39.5612.45431
1411Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’39.5822.47521
1526Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’39.6882.58119
1621Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’40.2083.10122
1725Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’41.4434.33612
181Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’41.7654.65825

Combined practice times

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Fri/Sat diffTotal laps
1Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’39.9411’39.0851’37.107-1.97859
2Nico RosbergMercedes1’40.2331’39.0881’37.990-1.09881
3Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’41.9071’40.4571’38.214-2.24376
4Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’40.8281’38.437-2.39157
5Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’41.0651’40.1891’38.727-1.46269
6Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’42.5981’40.3901’38.927-1.46351
7Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’41.7221’40.8001’38.960-1.8469
8Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’42.3331’41.3321’39.000-2.33278
9Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’41.9651’40.5431’39.143-1.472
10Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’40.3191’40.6981’39.241-1.07885
11Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’40.9871’40.6411’39.335-1.30686
12Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’42.3291’41.1581’39.448-1.7183
13Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’43.2291’41.0541’39.561-1.49388
14Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’42.3591’41.1231’39.582-1.54179
15Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’40.8871’40.6311’39.688-0.94386
16Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’42.5161’41.4201’40.208-1.21280
17Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’41.1101’41.443+0.33348
18Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’41.4631’43.9801’41.765+0.30264
19Felipe NasrWilliams-Mercedes1’41.54519
20Max VerstappenToro Rosso-Renault1’41.78532

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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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...

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11 comments on “Hamilton ahead again as brake trouble delays Rosberg”

  1. It seems McLaren’s friday performance was nothing but a mirage

  2. Difficult to judge if Hamilton is really that far ahead of Rosberg but the gap over the rest of the field is worrying for a challenge to Mercedes.
    I hope Williams can be closer in the race – but as long as Hamilton beats Rosberg, I’m happy.

  3. Already less than a second slower than the 1’36.3 2013 pole time – with the torque effect through the numerous traction zones and the reduction of downforce through fast apexes, that is jolly impressive. They may be single-mindedly competitive to the point of eliminating other teams, but F1’s powerhouses are things of technological marvel.

    1. It would be nice at the end of the year to do a comparison with 2013 race and qualifying times and see exactly how much slower the cars are, but for using 35% less fuel they are quite impressive indeed.

      1. @mantresx – Interestingly we also saw fast times at Bahrain, Canada and Monza, so the W05 does appear to have decent traction despite the torque, albeit the greater V-maxes counteract some of that effect.

  4. I wonder how many times the line ‘Fernando Alonso was fifth quickest for Ferrari’ these pages have seen this season. My driver of the year, no doubt.

  5. I’d say that the Merc drivers probably have done roughly the same mileage this weekend with Hamilton getting hampered in FP2 and Rosberg getting hampered in FP3.

    1. @ultimateuzair Looking at the total laps for each driver so far over the 3 sessions…it reads 59 for HAM and 81 for Rosberg.

    2. Nop. As it says on the article, Rosberg did 81 laps and Hamilton 59.

    3. Not sure about that, FP1,FP2,FP3 total laps for both : Ham= 59, Ros=81

    4. 22 laps difference means Hamilton had completed less than 75% of the distance Rosberg has.

      Making his performance pretty spectacular.

      I think Rosberg is starting to look a little pressured, which with his habit of making deafening clangers isn’t a good sign for him.

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