Monaco GP, Free Practice 3: Rosberg precedes Massa

Nico Rosberg is the fastest driver in the last free practice session at the Monaco GP, but the Ferraris and Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel are hot on his heels: 51 thousandths separate the four drivers.

The Supersoft tires made the difference in Monte Carlo, improving the drivers' performance by around six tenths compared to the Softs and in these conditions the one who excelled was Mercedes, which with Nico Rosberg took advantage of the compound by lapping in 1'15"159 and beat Felipe Massa with the first Ferrari by just 38 thousandths. Behind him, exactly half a tenth of a second, was Sebastian Vettel who appeared to be in difficulty on the Softs and who demonstrated that he could fight for pole on the supersofts, but no less was Fernando Alonso, separated by just one thousandth from the German : excellent performance from the F2012, which seems to go well in all conditions here in Monaco. Fifth place for Romain Grosjean with the Lotus, who takes 286 thousandths from Rosberg, then the two McLarens: if Jenson Button contains the disadvantage in 312 thousandths, Lewis Hamilton does worse, almost six tenths behind. Michael Schumacher also finishes very far behind, 734 thousandths behind his teammate, while the Top 10 is closed by Sergio Perez with the Sauber, very fast with the Softs but which pays 951 thousandths on the Supersoft compounds, and Mark Webber with the second Red Bull, 1"060 from the summit.

Of note is the 12th time of Kimi Raikkonen, who worked on the long runs while his Lotus teammate Grosjean developed the setup for qualifying; the Finn was preceded by Jean-Eric Vergne, who made two long runs with the Toro Rosso at the Piscine chicane. As tradition in Monte Carlo there were many accidents and accidents: the two most significant were those of Paul Di Resta, who broke the front wing when he crashed into the barriers after falling long on the curbs at the exit of the Tunnel, and Pastor Maldonado: the Venezuelan winner in Barcelona ran wide at the Casino, hit the barriers with his right rear and crashed at the Mirabeau curve, destroying the left side and losing the rear wheel: the race was suspended with the red flags with four minutes to go and now it's a race against time for the Williams mechanics to repair the crashed FW34 in time for qualifying, which starts at 14pm.

Lorena Bianchi

Here are the FP3 times:

Pos Driver Team / Car Time Gap Laps 1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m15.159s 25 2. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m15.197s + 0.038s 21 3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m15.209s + 0.050s 20 4. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m15.210 .0.051s + 20s 5 1. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 15.445m0.286s + 18s 6 1. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 15.471m0.312s + 19s 7 1. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 15.734m0.575s + 19s 8 1. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 15.893m0.734s + 23s 9 1. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 16.110m0.951s + 14s 10 1. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 16.219m1.060s + 19s 11 1. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 16.226m1.067 .20s + 12s 1 16.301. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1.142m21s + 13s 1 16.311. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1.152m19s + 14s 1 16.479. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1.320m20s + 15s 1 17.027 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1.868m20s + 16s 1 17.055. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 1.896m26s + 17s 1 17.276. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 2.117m25s + 18s 1 17.390. Paul di Resta Force India- Mercedes 2.231m19s + 19s 1 17.404. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 2.245m22s + 20s 1 18.259. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 3.100m18s + 21s 1 18.488. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 3.329m22s + 22s 1 19.099. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 3.940m17s + 23s 1 19.147. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 3.988m19s + 24s 1 19.151. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 3.992m19s + XNUMXs XNUMX