Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Rosberg fastest as Ferrari remains close

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Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of the final practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix, beating team-mate Lewis Hamilton by nearly 0.2s.

While Hamilton was quickest in FP2 on Friday, it was Rosberg who responded to post a time 0.184s faster than the 2014 world champion in Saturday's practice session, with the two Mercedes drivers over half a second clear of the field on the medium tyres.

Ferrari remained Mercedes' nearest challenger, with Kimi Raikkonen third and Sebastian Vettel fourth, separated by just 0.021s. Raikkonen's session was interrupted by a suspected left rear puncture which limited his running, while he had also been involved in a strange lap close behind Romain Grosjean as he twice saw the Lotus shut the door as Raikkonen attempted to pass.

The Mercedes advantage was coming from the high-speed corners in the middle sector, with Rosberg 0.7s quicker than everyone else but Hamilton through sector two. However, Ferrari has marked itself out as a threat if either Mercedes slips up in qualifying this afternoon.

Williams produced its usual step forward in pace during FP3, with Felipe Massa fifth ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas. Similar to Ferrari, both drivers were evenly matched on the medium tyres - 0.015s apart - and 0.7s off the pace set by Rosberg.

Daniel Ricciardo in seventh and Carlos Sainz Jr in eighth were also within a second of Rosberg's best time, with the Red Bull and Toro Rosso separated by 0.011s. However, Max Verstappen was a further 0.3s back in the second STR10, ahead of Marcus Ericsson's Sauber.

McLaren continued to show a step forward as Fernando Alonso ended the session in 15th place ahead of one Force India and One Sauber as part of a group of six cars - and five teams - covered by half a second. It was a more difficult session for Jenson Button, though, who had only Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens behind him after requiring an engine change due to an ICE issue discovered overnight.

With grip levels low on Friday, a number of drivers had off-track moments in final practice, with Sergio Perez running wide at Turn 9 and Merhi suffering his second spin of the weekend at the same corner.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	N. Rosberg	Mercedes	1:39.690	13
02	L. Hamilton	Mercedes	1:39.873	10
03	K. Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:40.245	9
04	S. Vettel	Ferrari	1:40.266	13
05	F. Massa	Williams	1:40.391	14
06	V. Bottas	Williams	1:40.406	15
07	D. Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:40.590	19
08	C. Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:40.601	19
09	M. Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:40.989	18
10	M. Ericsson	Sauber	1:41.200	19
11	R. Grosjean	Lotus	1:41.206	16
12	P. Maldonado	Lotus	1:41.592	18
13	D. Kvyat	Red Bull	1:41.775	14
14	N. Hulkenberg	Force India	1:41.804	15
15	F. Alonso	McLaren	1:41.991	13
16	S. Perez	Force India	1:42.099	14
17	F. Nasr	Sauber	1:42.117	18
18	J. Button	McLaren	1:42.319	13
19	R. Merhi	Manor	1:46.647	9
20	W. Stevens	Manor	1:47.059	6

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.