Spanish Grand Prix – Final Practice Results

Source: autosport.com | lotusf1team.com | twitter |

With one last chance to prepare for qualifying, Kimi made good use of the team’s final opportunity to squeeze the final drops of performance from his car, while Romain was unfortunate to suffer the E20’s first dose of unreliability during the season so far.

Slightly cooler conditions than the previous day’s running at the Circuit de Catalunya, but nonetheless a dry, bright and warm start as the one hour countdown for Free Practice 3 began.

Kimi and Romain charged down the pit lane in flying formation for their install laps on matching sets of the silver marked Pirelli hard compound tyres. Standard procedure of system checks and oil dips before heading back to base to wait patiently for an opportunity to attack the track.

The drivers eventually seized their chance to put the E20’s through their paces with fifteen minutes elapsed – once again sporting identical hard compound tyres.

A matter of minutes later, Romain’s session came to a premature end with a loss of fuel pressure forcing the Frenchman to stop out on track. Despite stellar work from the mechanics, there was simply not enough time to get the car back out for another run.

In the meantime Kimi continued to work on long runs using the hard tyres, occasionally heading back to box for minor tweaks aimed at eliminating mild doses of understeer from his E20.

As the chequered flag dropped, Kimi finished the morning in P9 with a fastest time of 1:23.936 from 16 laps, while Romain failed to set a flying lap due to technical issues with his E20.

Pos--Driver---------------Team-------------------Time---------------Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m23.168             13
 2.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m23.336s  + 0.168   19
 3.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m23.350s  + 0.182   19
 4.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m23.578s  + 0.410   16
 5.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m23.742s  + 0.574   22
 6.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m23.807s  + 0.639   15
 7.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m23.833s  + 0.665   14
 8.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m23.909s  + 0.741   13
 9.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m23.936s  + 0.768   16
10.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m24.070s  + 0.902   23
11.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m24.179s  + 1.011   16
12.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m24.323s  + 1.155   17
13.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m24.331s  + 1.163   15
14.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault       1m24.409s  + 1.241   18
15.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m24.599s  + 1.431   15
16.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m24.778s  + 1.610   15
17.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m24.825s  + 1.657   17
18.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m25.911s  + 2.743   20
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m26.587s  + 3.419   20
20.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m27.469s  + 4.301   18
21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m27.689s  + 4.521   16
22.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m28.207s  + 5.039   24
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m28.373s  + 5.205   13
24.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          no time               2