Free Practice 3: Williams succeeds Red Bull at the top

After the Red Bull team yesterday, it was the two Williams that secured the top spots in the third testing session in Great Britain. It’s a very cool but dry weather dominating this final test session at the Silverstone circuit. Only 13 or 14 degrees in the air, no more than 20 degrees on the track, slightly damp from the overnight rain.

Nico Rosberg is once again the leader during pre-race tests, but this time, he has brought his teammate, Kazuki Nakajima, with him for a magnificent one-two finish for the British team.

Jarno Trulli for Toyota is third and yesterday’s leader, Sebastian Vettel, is only fourth for Red Bull.

The championship leader, Jenson Button in a Brawn, is having modest practice sessions as he is only 12th, one place behind the other home driver this weekend, Lewis Hamilton in a McLaren.

With a wet track at the start of the session, it took a long time to see any single-seaters on the track apart from the installation laps each driver completed as usual at the start of the hour.

It is Nelson Piquet (Renault) at the wheel of his R29 who enters the track first after 23 minutes with soft tires. He was, of course, the leader since only Nick Heidfeld (BMW) joined him. It was quite dangerous for the Brazilian to drive with this type of tires since the track was still wet even though it was drying very quickly. Indeed, the wind and the fact that the track is quite abrasive proved to be decisive this morning. In any case, the circuit has returned to ‘green’ after yesterday, and enough rubber needed to be laid down again to regain conditions similar to yesterday’s.

Then, after the half-hour of testing, all the drivers took to the track, and the leader’s position kept changing. A frenetic pace set in on the circuit as conditions improved minute by minute.

Rosberg repeatedly took command of the operations but was dislodged from the top position by his teammate Nakajima, the two Toyotas, Sébastien Bourdais’ Toro Rosso, and the two Red Bulls. The performances improved even further when most of the cars were fitted with soft tires ten minutes before the end of the session when the track was perfectly dry. The goal being to simulate the qualifying session.

It was Felipe Massa (Ferrari) who was the first to beat Vettel with hard tires, running a bit wide at Woodcote.

The Ferrari then dropped from first to fourth place in a matter of seconds as Trulli and the two Williams took the top three positions.

Rosberg and Nakajima had time to do another fast lap, and for a few moments, it appeared that the Japanese driver, a few hundred meters ahead of his teammate, was capable of clinching the first pole position of his career during a practice session. He managed to push back Trulli. However, Rosberg dug deep in the last minute and beat his teammate by 0.203 seconds with a time of 1:18.899. The first to go under the 1:19 mark.

Behind Trulli and Vettel, the two Ferraris finish 5th and 6th with Felipe Massa ahead of Kimi Räikkönen. The second Toyota, driven by Timo Glock, is in 7th position. The German frequently sampled the English grass during this session, mainly at Becketts!

Fernando Alonso is eighth for Renault, ahead of Mark Webber’s Red Bull and Rubens Barrichello, who is the fastest of the Brawn drivers.

Force India couldn’t maintain its good form from Friday, but both drivers Adrian Sutil in 15th and Giancarlo Fisichella in 16th managed to beat Heikki Kovalainen’s McLaren in 17th, Nick Heidfeld’s BMW in 18th, Robert Kubica’s BMW in 19th, and Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso in 19th. Frenchman Sébastien Bourdais is 14th behind Piquet.

Free Practice 3 Results – British GP – Saturday, June 20, 2009: