German GP, ​​Free Practice 3: Alonso at the top ahead of Hamilton and Perez

Fernando Alonso achieved the best time in the third free practice session of the German GP: the Ferrari driver preceded Lewis Hamilton with the McLaren and Sergio Perez with the Sauber, setting the time just before the rain arrived.

In fact, after starting testing with clear skies, the weather gradually began to cloud over: in Hockenheim the rain arrived five minutes from the end of FP3, and now everyone's eyes are turned to the sky for Qualifying, which will probably they will compete in the wet. The tests were very competitive: after a start in which Pastor Maldonado came out on top, it was then the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber who were the fastest, before Lewis Hamilton (with medium tyres) set the best time. But Alonso immediately beat him on the soft tires, lapping in 1'16”014, 77 thousandths better than the Englishman. Third place for Perez's excellent Sauber, which finishes 188 thousandths behind the Ferrari driver, while Kimi Raikkonen is only 36 thousandths behind him. The Lotus Finn ran as expected without Double DRS, the innovation introduced by the Enstone team whose testing will continue in Hungary. The Top 5 of FP3 is closed by Mark Webber: the Australian was forced to change the transmission during the night, Red Bull used the permission to work at night to replace the gearbox and therefore the winner of Silverstone will start five positions lower on the grid, like what will happen for Nico Rosberg with Mercedes and Romain Grosjean with Lotus, who are also struggling with the same problem.

Behind Webber, his teammate Vettel, four and a half tenths behind Alonso; then Pastor Maldonado at six and a half tenths, then Felipe Massa's Ferrari in eighth place, a tenth worse than the Venezuelan from Williams. Kamui Kobayashi, ninth with the Sauber at 0"793, and Bruno Senna with the second Williams, at nine tenths, close the Top Ten, from which several big names are missing: 15th and 17th place for Michael's two Mercedes hosts Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, with the former Ferrari driver setting the time just as the first drops of rain were falling, while Jenson Button did even worse, only 24th at almost 5" with the McLaren. This afternoon it will be the qualifying round, scheduled for 14pm.

Lorena Bianchi

Here are the FP3 times:

Pos Driver Team Time Lap Gap 1. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m16.014s 14 2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m16.091s + 0.077 21 3. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m16.202s + 0.188 21 4. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m16.238. 0.224s + 27 5 1. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 16.447m0.433s + 19 6 1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 16.475m0.461s + 18 7 1. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 16.664m0.650s + 18 8 1. Felipe Massa Ferrari 16.771m0.757s + 15 9 1. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 16.801m0.793s + 25 10 1. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 16.930m0.916s + 23 11 1. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 16.962m0.948s + 26 12 1. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 17.033m1.019s + 26 13 1. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 17.148m1.134s + 24 14 1. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 17.238m1.224s + 25 15 1. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 17.266m1.252s + 22 16 1 17.419 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1.405m23s + 17 1 17.491. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1.477m26s + 18 1 18.366. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 2.352m21s + 19 1 18.818. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 2.804m23. 20s+ 1 19.778 3.764. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 22m21s + 1 20.235 4.221. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 22m22s + 1 20.318 4.304. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 9m23s + 1 20.741 4.727. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 22m24s + 1 20.914 4.900. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 25mXNUMXs + XNUMX XNUMX