FP3 done and dusted in Melbourne as Red Bull leads followed by McLaren – Formula 1
The final Free Practice (FP) session lasting 60 minutes is over in Melbourne and once again the Red Bull’s duo, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, stole the show from everyone on the grid. The encouraging thing for the McLaren’s duo of Lewis Hamilton and
Jenson Button was that they were able to sit behind the Red Bull team with the third and fourth positions respectively.
Vettel’s car faced a mechanical problem with his front wing during the race. He had to go back to the pits to get it fixed, but was soon out and running again and posted the fastest time of the group. Webber was on his tail the whole race but was unable
to pass him.
Hispania Racing Team (HRT) had their first outing with both drivers, Narain Karthikeyan and Vitantonio Liuzzi. With both drivers on the track, they were unable to put any comprehensive times on the table. Narain’s car faced a problem in his first lap and
his fastest lap was almost 17 seconds slower than the pace sitter, Vettel.
Surprisingly the fifth driver behind the Red Bull and the McLaren drivers was Renault’s Vitaly Petrov. The Russian had the fastest time of 1 minute and 25.906 seconds. Sixth place was taken up by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who was almost two seconds slower
than Vettel, but didn’t face any problems in all three practice sessions.
Seventh was Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi who did a fastest of 1 minute and 26.417 seconds. Mercedes duo, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, were not able to put on a show. They finished in the top ten with Nico in eighth and Schumacher in tenth. Ninth was
Renault’s Nick Heidfeld whose aerodynamic winglet flew off during the race but he managed to get a smooth run on the car.
Major problems were faced by the Williams team when both of their drivers, Pastor Maldonado and Rubens Barrichello, were back in the pits before the session was over. The qualifiers for Melbourne Grand Prix start later on Saturday and the Williams’ team
are working hard in the pits to get their cars ready. Apart from Williams, HRT are also not looking like they will qualify, but only time will tell how competitive their F111 actually is.
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