Hamilton narrowly edges Ricciardo in final practice

2014 Monaco Grand Prix third practice

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Lewis Hamilton restored Mercedes to the top of the times in the third practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix – but Red Bull weren’t far behind.

Daniel Ricciardo ended the final hour of practice just five-hundredths of a second slower than Hamilton.

Their team mates were third and fourth. Nico Rosberg led the early part of the session when the drivers were running on the soft tyres, but was a tenth of a second off Hamilton on the super-soft tyres.

Sebastian Vettel was one of several drivers to lose a quick lap due to traffic on the short Monte-Carlo circuit. He ended up four-tenth of a second off the fastest time.

The field lined up in a neat order behind the top four, with Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen separated by a mere two hundredths of a second.

The two Force Indias were next, followed by the Toro Rosso pair and the Mercedes-powered McLaren and Williams duos.

Following the damp conditions during the last F1 session on Thursday, warm weather and sunny skies greeted the drivers on Saturday morning. However even with the warmer conditions drivers still found it took two or even three laps to find the best performance from the Pirelli’s softest rubber.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’16.75827
23Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’16.8080.05026
36Nico RosbergMercedes1’16.8740.11624
41Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’17.1840.42623
514Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’17.4280.67022
67Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’17.4480.69024
711Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’17.7250.96723
827Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’18.0741.31621
925Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’18.1361.37819
1026Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’18.1661.40826
1120Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’18.2491.49128
1222Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’18.2621.50421
1377Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’18.4301.67231
1419Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’18.5421.78430
1599Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’18.5981.84024
168Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’18.7762.01826
1717Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1’18.8722.11423
1813Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’19.1182.36028
1921Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’19.1492.39128
2010Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’20.2713.51332
214Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1’20.3943.63625
229Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1’20.5893.83130

Combined practice times

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Thur/Sat diffTotal laps
1Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’18.2711’18.9011’16.758-1.51371
2Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’18.5061’19.7791’16.808-1.69874
3Nico RosbergMercedes1’18.3031’22.8621’16.874-1.42966
4Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’19.0431’19.0171’17.184-1.83371
5Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’18.9301’18.4821’17.428-1.05468
6Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’19.4671’45.5091’17.448-2.01959
7Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’19.6661’19.6681’17.725-1.94161
8Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’19.8561’19.7121’18.074-1.63869
9Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’20.2601’19.3511’18.136-1.21569
10Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’20.9141’20.6221’18.166-2.45676
11Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’19.7891’20.2301’18.249-1.5473
12Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’20.0331’19.7211’18.262-1.45972
13Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’19.4941’19.4211’18.430-0.99171
14Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’20.5171’20.3941’18.542-1.85263
15Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’20.7361’20.8111’18.598-2.13860
16Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’20.2071’21.7001’18.776-1.43165
17Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1’21.3101’21.9371’18.872-2.43863
18Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’20.2411’20.9771’19.118-1.12373
19Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’20.1181’21.4671’19.149-0.96969
20Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’22.4921’21.9241’20.271-1.65376
21Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1’25.8171’22.6831’20.394-2.28945
22Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1’22.0631’23.1641’20.589-1.47476

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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Keith Collantine
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25 comments on “Hamilton narrowly edges Ricciardo in final practice”

  1. This is going to be epic in qualifying, at least I hope so!

  2. if Rosberg didn’t lose that time in 3rd sector, we would be having:
    Mercedes
    RB
    Ferrari
    FI
    TR
    McLaren
    Williams

    all in pairs))) how fascinating)))

    1. i guess he backed off little bit when he saw delta is good, vettel had same thing.. not sure though

  3. Yeah. I wonder how many people are going to rethink their predictions. I know I did!

  4. Rosberg looks very strong. Lewis is faster in middle sector but I don’t know if it will be enough to overcome his slower sectors 1,3.

  5. This is going to be the most fascinating qualifying this year, unless Mercedes were hiding something. Odd not to have any crashes, especially with a lot twitchier cars this year. Maybe we’ll see some in qualifying. I’m predicting Rosberg on pole, though one of RBRs could be challenging him, witch would be awesome.

  6. So close. This will be a very exciting Saturday.

  7. All front runners (Mercs and RBR drivers) were held up by traffic bar Ricciardo.

  8. Ricciardo constantly impressing me. Really gunning for Bianci to get into q2!!

    1. Really gunning for Bianci to get into q2!

      Me too. He get´s forgotten rather often, sadly, but he´s beating every teammate he had and he had a great pre-F1-career, so at some point he should really get a better drive. Making it to Q2 in Monaco might help that cause.

      1. You’re right, watching Ric go from the back to the middle to the front in such a short time while Bianchi is kinda stuck back there, I hope he gets a chance from a better team soon!

        1. Unfortunately, it might be difficult for Ferrari to get him a midfield car, unless Sauber improves (and drops De Silvestro and Sirotkin).

  9. Great lap by Bianchi. Splitting the Lotuses.
    Will be the most exciting qualifying session of the season. Hopefully Rosberg will pip Hamilton for pole and probably victory tomorrow.

  10. On the combined practise times table: Thur/Sat diff ;)

  11. I smell sc this weekend, and yellow flags!! This Monte Carlo track is “only for the strong”. we should write a movie about. I still go for 1.HAM,2.ROS.

  12. RIC is trashing VET so bad ! Total domination !

    1. But… but… what does it say about WEB?

      1. Don’t know what you mean, but WEB wasn’t/isn’t a 1st class driver. No wonder VET dominated him. Yeah, this looks like WEB’s revenge. Anyway, it shows that VET is not a very complete driver if he’s struggling to get the best out of a “certain” F1 car.

      2. WEB was most competitive against VET when the EBD wasn’t working. Now it’s completely gone. I think it says most about VET.

    2. I’ve tipped RIC over VET but VET was going faster until held up in the last sector. Not sure. Who beats who in qualy will be important for the race as 4th on the grid will be very much at risk of getting out-dragged by ALO into the first corner.
      (Obviously reckon Mercs then Bulls then Horsies)

    3. @corrado-dub Wow, you make big conclusions from FP3. Better wait qualifying. I can assure, you Vettel will be much closer to Ricciardo, maybe will beat him.

      1. Especially when Vettel had to back off… on paper for qualifying it’s 4-1 in Ricciardo’s favour but that doesn’t take into account Vettel’s misfortune in 2 of those qualifying sessions. Granted Ricciardo is certainly giving Vettel a hard time but ‘thrashing’ is a gross exaggeration.

      2. Yeah… sure ! Latest news: RIC beat VET in Quali ! Also, Vettel seems to complain more than Button too ! Yeah, it’s really hard to swallow for a 4-time WDC to be dominated by a guy without even a win !
        Anyway, come on, it’s not the start of the season anymore. RIC just seems to be 1st driver of the team.

  13. this is just toe to toe between team mates.. can Nico defend his pride or lewis takes it away? for RBR my money is on vettel…and maybe kimi will show he is just good as alonso by beating him here!

    1. There isn’t much separating most team mates except FI among the top 7 teams. It could go either way in all those battles. Being Monaco, expect a lot of drivers to be unable to get 100% at the crucial time due to traffic.

      Given how close Merc is to the rest here, even a small lockup from HAM or ROS in Q3 could see them in the middle of the top 10 which was not the case in previous races where they were practically assured a top 4 slot even if they aborted their final run. It’ll be interesting to see how they cope up with that pressure.

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