Free Practice 3 – Great Britain: Lewis Hamilton moves ahead again

The conditions are not at all the same as yesterday for the start of this session: a violent storm cleaned the track overnight. The sun is struggling to break through the remaining clouds. While the air temperature is 20°C, the track is only at 26°C, which is significantly less than yesterday.

When the light turns green, most of the drivers exit their pit boxes. Romain Grosjean, who had a complicated Friday, is the first to set a time on the board, but Kimi Räikkönen quickly beats his mark (1:36.718), before the Frenchman takes the lead again (1:36.485). The McLaren drivers are also eager to accumulate laps, and we even briefly see Fernando Alonso at the top of the standings.

At the end of the first quarter hour, the top 10 is Bottas, Vettel, Massa, Räikkönen, Verstappen, Alonso, Sainz, Maldonado, Hülkenberg, Grosjean. It is noteworthy that the two Mercedes have not yet set a time and the two Red Bulls have not yet entered the track.

In the process, Sebastian Vettel is the first to break the 1:35 barrier with a time of 1:34.932. The Toro Rosso team confirms their strong start to the weekend, moving up to 3rd and 4th, between the two Williams drivers. For his first timed lap, Nico Rosberg achieves a modest 10th place with a time of 1:35.750, but he restores order in the next lap by taking the lead in the session. However, he doesn’t stay at the top for long as his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, does better by three hundredths (1:34.399) while Daniil Kvyat is in 3rd position.

Nico Rosberg is definitely in great form this weekend as he sets a time of 1:33.731, the best time since the start of the weekend. However, Lewis Hamilton isn’t backing down and does even better right after with 1:33.333. The battle is truly on between the two teammates, and there’s still room for improvement since these times were set on hard tires.

After half an hour, the standings are as follows: Hamilton, Rosberg, Räikkönen, Kvyat, Vettel, Ricciardo, Bottas, Sainz, Maldonado, Verstappen.

To understand where his teammate made the difference, Nico Rosberg gets out of his car but stays helmeted to discuss with his engineers. Meanwhile, his mechanics are busy with his car, which seems to have gearbox issues again. At the bottom of the standings, the two Sahara Force India cars are ahead of the two McLaren cars, which are in front of the two Sauber cars and the two Manor cars.

As the last ten minutes approach, all the drivers return to the pits. They switch to medium tires and will likely conduct qualifying simulations with little fuel onboard. The lap times should therefore drop.

This is indeed the case as Lewis Hamilton manages to go under the 1:33 mark (1:32.917) while work is still ongoing on his teammate’s car. Kimi Räikkönen takes the opportunity to pass the German (1:33.692) but remains over seven-tenths behind the leader.

Fernando Alonso once again experienced a complicated session as a technical problem prevented him from completing more than six laps during the session.

For his last attempt, Nico Rosberg manages to improve but remains over half a second behind the local of the stage. The qualification should therefore be contested between the two teammates since the gap with the rest of the field is enormous.

From our special correspondent in Silverstone