Practice 3 Report - Admirable, laud Nelson?

Nelson Piquet set the fastest time of the Saturday morning session at Magny-Cours in his Renault, a rather surprising result given that the Brazilian has shown no pace at all this year. This was convenient in that there have been rumours for some weeks that the Brazilian is on the verge of being fired for his poor performances this year.

The fact that it was Renault at the French Grand Prix was something that should be kept in mind and if one sees a similar result in the afternoon qualifying it will be interesting to see whether or not the race has gone 10 laps before the first Renault pit stop. This is apparently something to do with marketing. Renault has been doing a little better of late than at the start of the year but the team is still only solidly in the midfield. The rest is just smoke and mirrors.

The usefulness of the sessions was underlined by the fact that there was not a McLaren or a Ferrari in the top four, with Mark Webber second in his Red Bull, Sebastian Vettel third in a Toro Rosso and Nico Rosberg fourth in his Williams.

Kimi Raikkonen was the first serious player in fifth with Jarno Trulli's Toyota and Lewis Hamilton's McLaren next up.

Local hero Sebastien Bourdais was next in his Toro Rosso with the top 10 completed by Felipe Massa's Ferrari and David Coulthard in his Red Bull.

The rest of the field was much as one would expect although it was a surprise to see Fernando Alonso down in 12th, McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen 13th and Canada winner Robert Kubica in 14th.