Webber edges Hamilton in final practice

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The Red Bulls flew in final practice

Red Bull showed their hand ahead of the Malaysian Grand Prix as both drivers finished in the top three in the final practice session.

Mark Webber beat Lewis Hamilton by 17 thousandths of a second, knocking the McLaren driver off the top spot in practice for the first time this weekend.

Sebastian Vettel backed him up in third place, the top three covered by a scant 45 thousandths of a second.

The McLaren drivers made early runs on the soft tyres in the final session as a rain shower passed by the circuit. The pair did another run on the option tyres later in the session but failed to improve – and Jenson Button was six tenths of a second off his team mate.

Rubens Barrichello showed some signs of improvement for Williams with the ninth fastest time.

It was a largely incident-free session although Heikki Kovalainen lost part of his Lotus’s front wing after running off the circuit.

PositionCar numberDriverCarBest lapLaps
16Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’33.54217
22Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’33.5590.01714
35Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’33.5870.04517
48Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’33.7510.20919
53Michael SchumacherMercedes1’33.9920.4515
64Nico RosbergMercedes1’34.0900.54813
71Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’34.1130.57116
87Felipe MassaFerrari1’34.1740.63215
99Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’34.5400.99813
1011Robert KubicaRenault1’34.5491.00717
1114Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’34.6231.08111
1216Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’34.6731.13119
1310Nico HulkenbergWilliams-Cosworth1’34.8821.3413
1415Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes1’34.9571.41516
1517Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’35.0261.48416
1612Vitaly PetrovRenault1’35.0761.53417
1722Pedro de la RosaSauber-Ferrari1’35.4771.93518
1823Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’36.4042.86219
1924Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’37.2993.75715
2018Jarno TrulliLotus-Cosworth1’37.3693.82716
2119Heikki KovalainenLotus-Cosworth1’38.1614.61918
2225Lucas di GrassiVirgin-Cosworth1’38.7835.24113
2321Bruno SennaHRT-Cosworth1’39.8686.32619
2420Karun ChandhokHRT-Cosworth1’39.8956.35316

Combined Malaysian Grand Prix practice results

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Total laps
1Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’35.4791’38.7861’33.54252
2Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’34.9211’34.1751’33.55960
3Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’36.0431’34.4411’33.58764
4Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’35.9691’35.5811’33.75173
5Michael SchumacherMercedes1’35.2251’34.6741’33.99259
6Nico RosbergMercedes1’35.1061’34.4431’34.09062
7Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’35.2071’34.5381’34.11365
8Felipe MassaFerrari1’36.4511’36.6021’34.17467
9Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’38.2781’36.8131’34.54057
10Robert KubicaRenault1’35.4021’35.1481’34.54973
11Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’35.9551’35.9571’34.62363
12Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’36.1001’35.6601’34.67378
13Nico HulkenbergWilliams-Cosworth1’37.8021’37.4151’34.88259
14Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes1’36.2211’34.95750
15Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’36.6451’36.3251’35.02673
16Vitaly PetrovRenault1’36.7121’35.8721’35.07646
17Pedro de la RosaSauber-Ferrari1’36.8991’36.3251’35.47775
18Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’36.5031’36.0181’36.40485
19Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’36.89125
20Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’39.7551’39.0611’37.29955
21Jarno TrulliLotus-Cosworth1’39.4601’38.4541’37.36971
22Heikki KovalainenLotus-Cosworth1’38.5301’38.16150
23Lucas di GrassiVirgin-Cosworth1’40.1591’39.1581’38.78367
24Bruno SennaHRT-Cosworth1’41.8321’41.4811’39.86878
25Karun ChandhokHRT-Cosworth1’41.9661’41.0841’39.89567
26Fairuz FauzyLotus-Cosworth1’40.72119

2010 Malaysian Grand Prix

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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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    33 comments on “Webber edges Hamilton in final practice”

    1. I missed FP3 because according to BBC Sport it was supposed to start at 6:55. AArgh, waking up early for nothing!!

      1. I hate to make things worse but I did point this out earlier in the week: Malaysian Grand Prix TV & live blog times

        1. F1Fanatic will now be my One Stop Shop for everything F1. Its that good

      2. lol, I also planned for the same time only catch the end of the practice. Also, BBC Player failed me cos it kept circling ound trying to load video and that is me with a fast broadband. Never had problems like this before.

        1. i also had problems with the player specially on the start of the session

      3. it was clear that williams were preparing the race in sepang the weather is unpredictable so it seems obvious to try to find a racing set up asap quali may not be crucial and also last year rosberg williams ran very well at start. im only surprised with hamilton i wasnt expecting him still on the top really out performing his team mate likewise alonso

    2. Interesting that Webber and Hamilton find themselves heading practice sessions. Bridgestone have just revealed that both of those drivers “had to do a two-stop” in Melbourne.

      http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82635

      1. Very interesting. I remember Hamilton on radio saying his tires were going off (after his second pit) and thinking there’s no way he would’ve made it without that second pit. Seconds later he was on the radio again cursing his team for calling him in. What’s even more interesting in that article is that Bridgestone said Alonso took the best care of his tires.

        1. The Ferrari has always been the kindest car to its tyres all through pre-season testing and this will be a major factor in the championship.

          1. and in 2007 and 08 they were only performing on the harder tracks because of that factor

      2. Magnificent Geoffrey
        3rd April 2010, 7:43

        Are we to imply from this that both Mark and Lewis are simply going too fast? I’m not forgetting the fact that last weekend was a very rare scenario for the teams and drivers to deal with but I’m just a little bit concerned that the need to conserve tyres is now more crucial to a racing situation than out-and-out pace. That’s a factor more suitable to endurance-racing and I don’t like the idea that the ‘quicker’ drivers are shooting themselves in the foot by pushing too hard.

        Obviously tyre management is a crucial factor for every driver with this year’s regulations, but if these rules mean that there’s a greater emphasis on backing off slightly and conserving tyres over pushing “like a hell” for the entire race distance – I can’t see that helping the ‘racing’ situation at all.

        I imagine I’m probably just repeating what people said after Bahrain, but it seems as though one-stopping with a very long second-stint on the hard tyres is the only way to go for the front-runners in a dry, Safety Car free race…and I honestly can’t see that being a effective catalyst for overtaking at all.

        1. I think we’re just two races into the season and no-one really knows yet.

          What happened in Australia was largely reactive. Button found himself in the lead with no need to pit and gambled on getting to the end without another stop. Hamilton had passed several cars and probably hurt his tyres a lot more doing so, so he took an extra stop.

          1. “Hamilton had passed several cars and probably hurt his tyres a lot more doing so, so he took an extra stop.”
            Hamilton’s drive was a case in point. Overtaking was possible but at the cost of tyre wear. This problem will be more pronounced once we get to more fully dry races. I fully expect dry races to be more like bahrain.

      3. Interesting new perspective. I wonder if Hamilton knew his tyres were near-terminal before his first stop? He knew they were towards the end, but he’d probably have assumed that was because he was pushing like hell for the latter part of the race.

        If he did know the score before the first stop, then his criticism of the team becomes rather less impressive (let no-one say I’m a Hamilton fanboy!).

      4. But article goes on to say that Button’ tires were also shot and it was actually “dangerous” for him to have gone that long. If Button had slid off a la Hamilton in China a couple years back on busted tires, he and the Team would be mercilessly criticized. If Hamilton had got by Kubica, possibly he would have been in a position to take the former’s pace and hold out till the end too. As for the Ferrari their approach of letting Fred nurse his tires till the end almost cost them two spots to Hamilton. This is to say, these strategic calls were all very close and Bridgestone’s statement supplies little in terms of constructive hindsight.

    3. Expecting Vettel on pole….

    4. Expecting it to rain a lot…..

    5. Hoping for Vettel on pole…

      Hoping for it to rain a lot…

    6. Schumi finally beats Rosberg :D
      If it rains then HRT, Virgin and Lotus have chance to get into Q2

      1. Lotus managed it…

        1. Virgin also managed to get P16

    7. If it rains there might not be a Q2!

      1. WHy? How it is actually possible?

      2. It wouldn’t surprise me if, after all the talk of rain and the hangover from last year, it turns out we don’t see a drop!

        That said looking at the weather forecasts it looks like we are going to get rain.

        1. But are u actually thinking that after Q1 qualifying will be stopped and over?

          1. You never know we could see Sunday morning qualifying.

            1. I’ll be amazed (okay, disappointed) if, after what happened in Brazil last year, the FIA haven’t come up with a fixed back-up plan.

    8. That looks like a good lap from Glock – 1.5s clear of di Grassi and ahead of both the Lotuses.

      1. im gonna start making top50 now. Whats the email? :)

      2. And just around 0.8 sec behind the Sauber of Kobayashi. Great drive…

        1. yeah, but the same way we can say that Sauber drove badly

    9. so if the qualification get cancelled cause of rain, do they use FP3 times for the grid line up?

      1. No way. They will wait some 3 hours and drive under the twilight

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