German GP 2011

JULY 23, 2011

Practice 3 Report - Red Bulls top FP3

Sebastian Vettel, German GP 2011
© The Cahier Archive

The Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel (1:30.916) and Mark Webber (1:31.049) topped the final session of free practice for the German Grand Prix at Nurburgring.

Provided that the weather remains dry, the pole position battle looks set to be between the Red Bull pair and Fernando Alonso's Ferrari, which was in close touch with a lap in 1:31.138.

With track temperatures down around 18-19 degrees, the quick laps tended to be coming on the second lap on Pirelli's option rubber. Fernando Alonso, however, recorded his quickest FP3 lap on the first lap, suggesting that the Ferrari may have some more in hand.

The McLaren one-lap pace appears to be around half a second away, with Lewis Hamilton lapping in 1:31.578 and Jenson Button in 1:31.623.

Nico Rosberg (1:31.694) was only seven hundredths behind Button, while Felipe Massa (1:32.144) can be expected to be closer than the one second deficit apparent between himself and Ferrari team mate Alonso in FP3.

Adrian Sutil (1:32.391) was eighth quickest for Force India with Michael Schumacher (1:32.523) and Pascal Maldonado (1:32.751) completing the top 10.