Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Hamilton tops FP3 as Rosberg hits more trouble

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Lewis Hamilton was fastest in final practice for the British Grand Prix as Nico Rosberg was hit by more reliability problems.

With Hamilton already quickest after the hard tyre runs, Rosberg suffered a gearbox oil leak which confined him to the pits until the closing minutes of the session. Hamilton duly went out on medium tyres and became the only driver to dip in to the 1m32s with a time of 1:32.917.

Rosberg managed to emerge for one flying lap on medium tyres and ended the session second quickest but 0.552s adrift of his team-mate. It was a strong session for Mercedes as Kimi Raikkonen was the only other driver to get within a second of Hamilton's time with a 1:33.692.

Sebastian Vettel was fourth but 1.001s slower than the pace-setter, with the quadruple world champion one of many drivers to struggle through Copse, running wide at the high speed corner on his best lap.

Toro Rosso's impressive weekend continued with Max Verstappen fifth ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz in sixth. Both cars were over 1.2s off the pace but will be eyeing a spot on the third row in qualifying having achieved such a result in Spain - on a similarly high-speed circuit - four races ago.

Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were seventh and eighth respectively as Williams showed a step forward from Friday but will be disappointed to be 1.6s off the pace and beaten by the Toro Rosso pair. Williams did get itself ahead of Red Bull, however, with Daniil Kvyat ninth and Pastor Maldonado rounding out the top ten for Lotus.

McLaren's struggles continue as Fernando Alonso was only able to complete six laps in the session before a hydraulic issues forced him to end his running. Alonso finished 18th fastest ahead of the two Manor cars, while team-mate Jenson Button was 16th and it looks set to be a fight between McLaren and Sauber for the final spot in Q2.

Click here for Friday's gallery from the British Grand Prix

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:32.917	18
02	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:33.469	14
03	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:33.692	20
04	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:33.918	16
05	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:34.147	20
06	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:34.282	23
07	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:34.501	18
08	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:34.538	19
09	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:34.545	16
10	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:34.708	25
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:34.886	21
12	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:34.896	15
13	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:35.121	22
14	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:35.246	22
15	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:35.587	19
16	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:35.695	19
17	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:35.989	20
18	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:36.101	6
19	Will Stevens	Manor	1:37.989	18
20	Roberto Merhi	Manor	1:38.285	18

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.