Mercedes quickest again in final practice

2013 British Grand Prix third practice

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Mercedes showed their rivals the quickest way around the Silverstone circuit in the final hour practice.

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton topped the times ahead of qualifying for the British Grand Prix. Hamilton was on top of the time with nine minutes to go but ran wide at Brooklands during one of his laps.

Shortly afterwards Rosberg produced a 1’31.497 to top the table for the second time this weekend.

The two Red Bulls were next up. Sebastian Vettel spent most of the session towards the bottom of the times before he and Mark Webber went out for their final runs. But they and several other drivers had to back off when Sergio Perez spun at Chapel.

The McLaren had just returned to the track after spending much of the session in the garage. He suffered a complete failure of the left-rear tyre on his car which caused some floor damage.

Several drivers went off during the final practice of hour, mostly at Brooklands or in the high-speed Becketts section. Felipe Massa had a moment at the latter and stayed in the pits during the final few minutes after his mechanics discovered a problem with his engine.

Romain Grosjean was fifth fastest for Lotus despite complaining of traffic at the end of the session. Kimi Raikkonen was eighth after conducting further tests on the team’s Drag Reduction Device.

Another driver to go off at Brooklands was Fernando Alonso who ended up seventh fastest behind Daniel Ricciardo.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
19Nico RosbergMercedes1’31.48718
210Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’31.6330.14620
31Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’32.0370.55020
42Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’32.0780.59117
58Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’32.3910.90418
619Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’32.4400.95319
73Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’32.4540.96718
87Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault1’32.4590.97222
915Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’32.5361.04917
1014Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’32.5711.08417
1118Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’32.5801.09315
125Jenson ButtonMcLaren1’32.9261.43918
1316Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1’33.1331.64617
1411Nico HulkenbergSauber-Ferrari1’33.2251.73816
154Felipe MassaFerrari1’33.2731.78616
1617Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault1’33.3091.82225
1712Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’33.3701.88319
186Sergio PerezMcLaren1’33.6072.1209
1920Charles PicCaterham-Renault1’34.9713.48418
2022Jules BianchiMarussia-Cosworth1’34.9903.50317
2123Max ChiltonMarussia-Cosworth1’36.6945.20716
2221Giedo van der GardeCaterham-Renault1’37.4435.95618

Combined practice times: 2013 British Grand Prix

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Fri/Sat diffTotal laps
1Nico RosbergMercedes1’32.2481’31.487-0.76154
2Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’55.4581’32.9111’31.633-1.27853
3Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’32.6801’32.037-0.64355
4Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’32.5471’32.078-0.46944
5Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’33.3221’32.391-0.93157
6Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’54.2491’33.1711’32.440-0.73163
7Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’33.4941’32.454-1.0454
8Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault1’34.1201’32.459-1.66152
9Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’33.3131’32.536-0.77755
10Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’32.8321’32.571-0.26155
11Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’57.8911’33.2901’32.580-0.7157
12Jenson ButtonMcLaren1’33.7401’32.926-0.81448
13Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1’55.3541’35.1271’33.133-1.99459
14Nico HulkenbergSauber-Ferrari1’55.0331’33.8961’33.225-0.67159
15Felipe MassaFerrari2’06.5341’43.4661’33.273-10.19329
16Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault1’56.3611’35.0701’33.309-1.76161
17Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’55.8251’34.9981’33.370-1.62860
18Sergio PerezMcLaren1’34.1301’33.607-0.52339
19Charles PicCaterham-Renault1’36.0791’34.971-1.10856
20Jules BianchiMarussia-Cosworth1’59.8761’35.8021’34.990-0.81252
21Giedo van der GardeCaterham-Renault1’58.8591’35.9841’37.443+1.45956
22Max ChiltonMarussia-Cosworth1’59.7191’37.3291’36.694-0.63556

2013 British Grand Prix

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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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21 comments on “Mercedes quickest again in final practice”

  1. STR improved alot since they upgraded to ramp tunnel style coanda exhaust.

  2. Any resemblance to secret testing, is purely coincidental.

    1. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
      29th June 2013, 11:21

      @hipn0tic Not a valid fact here. Mercedes have been topping practice sessions from the staert of the season. Improvements, if any, will be revealed in the race. I personally don’t think there will be much of an improvement.

      1. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
        29th June 2013, 11:26

        reply*

      2. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
        29th June 2013, 11:28

        Holding my breath for qualifying! Will the Ferrari perform better? Are Ferrari even trying to improve ? :0 Do they realise Alonso’s championship is sinking only and only because of bad qualifying?

        1. i see we have a ferrari fan here! i suspect ferrari will be equally strong here in terms of race pace as they’ve been in previous grand prixs but lack of the one lap pace which mercedes has. Im tipping a Mercedes front row lockout in quali. However, I fear we’ll have another redbull charging to the top step of the podium. hopefully webber instead of vettel, that dudes been on an astonishing form this season! with a 4th place as his worst finishing position thus far this 2013 season.

          1. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
            29th June 2013, 11:45

            Yeah, I guess. Same story will be repeated.

        2. i see we have a ferrari fan here! i suspect ferrari will be equally strong here in terms of race pace as they’ve been in previous grand prixs but lack of the one lap pace which mercedes has. Im tipping a Mercedes front row lockout in quali. However, I fear we’ll have another redbull charging to the top step of the podium. hopefully webber instead of vettel, that dudes been on an astonishing form this season! with a 4th place as his worst finishing position thus far this 2013 season. The lotus with its new passive DRS seems to be a threat to the podium too, especially in the warmer climate in direct contradiction to FP1 and FP2.

          1. and…. my predictions were true. Mercedes 1-2, Redbull 3-4. Ferraris no where to be seen relative to the front end of the grid. but i suspect a hard charging alonso will be at play here on sunday.

        3. They have had the best race pace for most of the season, but I think poor qualifying is a combination of not being as good as Mercedes in qualifying Alonso not being as good as a Vettel or Rosberg over one lap.

          If you look throughout his career he’s never been a noted qualifier. Ferrari haven’t even had qualified in pole in dry conditions since September 2010.

          Look at McLaren from 2010-12 and all poles Hamilton took. Button is a strong driver but only took one pole in that entire time. If Button was your lead driver then people would have assumed that the McLaren was a “weak qualifier” rather than the driver himself.

      3. @shreyasf1fan That’s why i said purely coincidental. At the race we will see…

        1. To be fair, I think anyone that reads your initial comment senses sarcasm, even if it is not intended.

    2. Because Mercedes haven’t been strong with one lap race pace all season.. Oh no, they have! You plonker

      1. Please read and read again my sentence, at the race of the next 3 races we will see….

    3. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
      29th June 2013, 11:23

      @hipn0tic Not a valid fact here. Mercedes have been topping practice sessions from the start of the season. Improvements, if any, will be revealed in the race. I personally don’t think there will be much of an improvement.

      1. Looking at Mercedes long run pace yesterday, They did seem to be suffering from far less tyre drop-off than they were Pre-Test.

        Also looking at how they set the fastest laps this morning, They were set several laps into a run which suggests the tyres are not suffering as they were a few races ago.

        1. O’rly????

        2. Dizzy were we watching the same broadcast? i recalled vettel during his race simulation was running on the primes over a 10 lap stint lapping around the mid 1.38s. Contrasting that info with hamilton’s 10 lap stint on the similar harder of the compounds he was lapping over a second slower than that of the redbull! with an average of mid 1.39s!!

          to further reinforce my argument and refuting what you said above as utter rubbish, Rosberg and Webber were running similar compounds (Mediums) during race sim. and as expected Nico was running significantly slower to webber!

          1. To be fair you have to compare Vettel and Nico, but we also know that Brawn is a master in strategy so the advantage that Mercedes have we will see it in a gradual way, not all of it in the final practice.

    4. @hipn0tic – You’ll have a hard time proving that any success Mercedes have is down to their test at Barcelona and the test alone. Especially since they were using the early versions of the 2014 tyres at said test, which would be of little relevance to this year.

      1. @prisoner-monkeys We’ve seen already this change of pace in this race. But we will see it again and again…so it has to be coincidence, the test and the diference pace, for you not to relate to the test…

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