F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Rosberg, Hamilton and Ricciardo covered by 0.099s in FP3

Red Bull and Ferrari closed the gap to Mercedes in FP3 for the German Grand Prix, with the 0.164s covering all three teams.

Nico Rosberg was again quickest after an improvement on his final flying lap on supersoft tyres - set before Ferrari and Red Bull ran - with the German going 0.057s faster than team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton failed to improve on his final time, but the fact that both drivers were 0.2s slower than Rosberg's FP1 time suggests there is more to come from Mercedes.

One concern for the team emerged early in the session when Hamilton was released in front of Romain Grosjean in the pit lane, with the stewards investigating the incident. Hamilton has been called to see the stewards at 1230 local time, and the championship leader is currently just one reprimand away from an automatic ten-place grid penalty.

Regardless, Red Bull and Ferrari threatened during the session, with Daniel Ricciardo third quickest, 0.099s slower than Rosberg. Ricciardo set the fastest middle sector of the session as he threatened, with Ferrari and Williams also quicker than Mercedes in sector two.

Ricciardo was last of the front runners to complete his lap having spent much of the first half of the session in the garage, while Raikkonen ran shortly before the Australian and was fourth fastest overall, 0.164s off Rosberg.

Like Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel also failed to improve with his second attempt on supersofts, with the Ferrari driver finishing FP3 0.366s adrift. Max Verstappen was sixth and also within half a second of the best time, while the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa were seventh and eighth respectively.

Fernando Alonso kept McLaren in the top ten as he edged out Nico Hulkenberg by 0.1s, with a very close battle emerging for the final spots in Q3. Alonso's team-mate Jenson Button had a less successful session as he completed just six laps. Button had to have a tiny piece of carbon removed from his eye after FP2 on Friday but was hampered by reliability issues on Saturday morning which cost him more track time.

Only Grosjean completed less mileage than Button, with the Haas driver managing just four laps before a gearbox issue saw him go off at Turn 3. Grosjean returned to the pits where Haas decided a gearbox change was needed, leaving the team with a busy two hours before qualifying.

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Pos Driver Team Time Laps
01 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:15.738 16
02 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:15.795 19
03 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:15.837 13
04 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:15.902 16
05 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:16.104 20
06 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:16.182 23
07 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:16.400 28
08 Felipe Massa Williams 1:16.630 26
09 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:16.916 11
10 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:16.972 16
11 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:17.028 20
12 Sergio Perez Force India 1:17.066 10
13 Esteban Gutierrez Haas 1:17.160 17
14 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:17.227 19
15 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1:17.351 9
16 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:17.473 23
17 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:17.685 19
18 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:18.057 24
19 Jenson Button McLaren 1:18.093 6
20 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 1:18.270 24
21 Rio Haryanto Manor 1:18.272 18
22 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:25.160 4
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.

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