British Grand Prix – Final Practice Results: 5th

Source: autosport.com | lotusf1team.com | twitter

As a rare dose of sunshine flooded the Silverstone circuit during FP3 for the British Grand Prix this morning, Kimi and Romain showed good pace to bring their E20s home inside the top 5 in the last session before qualifying begins this afternoon.

Summary:

A dry and bright start at Silverstone this morning was a welcome sight for the team, as the final practice session for the British Grand Prix got underway.

Kimi and Romain joined a lengthy queue at the end of the pit lane as the green flags were waved; every team seemingly keen to condense as much running as possible into the ninety minute session having lost the majority of Friday testing to inclement weather conditions.

Matching sets of yellow marked soft compound Pirelli tyres adorned the E20s as both drivers took to the track for their opening stints, racking up the laps in the early stages with further rain predicted to interrupt running at the mid stage.

With the halfway point approaching, it was in fact a different issue which brought the session to a halt; the Marussia of Charles Pic stopping out on track and subsequently bringing out the red flags.

Kimi charged out of the garage for his second run

No sooner had running resumed than Kimi charged out of the garage for his second run, immediately jumping up to P2 with his first attempt on the silver marked hard compound Pirelli tyres.

Romain joined his team-mate on track a matter of minutes later; his initial effort moving the Frenchman up to P4 – just above his team mate on the same rubber – before setting the fastest time of the session shortly afterwards.

With just over ten minutes remaining, both E20s were circulating for their final runs; both using the soft tyres to end the session and running strongly in the top five.

As the final runners crossed the line to bring proceedings to a halt for lunch, Kimi found himself in P5 with a best time of 1:32.454 from 25 laps, while Romain’s best effort of 1:32.358 from 25 laps saw him end the morning in P3.

Pos--Driver---------------Team------------------Time---------------Laps
 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m32.167s            21
 2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m32.320s  + 0.153s  20
 3.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m32.358s  + 0.191s  25
 4.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m32.420s  + 0.253s  21
 5.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m32.454s  + 0.287s  25
 6.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m32.477s  + 0.310s  20
 7.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m32.622s  + 0.455s  21
 8.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m32.940s  + 0.773s  19
 9.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m33.046s  + 0.879s  20
10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m33.150s  + 0.983s  19
11.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault       1m33.267s  + 1.100s  25
12.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m33.367s  + 1.200s  20
13.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m33.398s  + 1.231s  24
14.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m33.462s  + 1.295s  24
15.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m33.673s  + 1.506s  22
16.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m33.674s  + 1.507s  21
17.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m33.707s  + 1.540s  21
18.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m33.733s  + 1.566s  15
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m34.298s  + 2.131s  18
20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m34.781s  + 2.614s  20
21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m36.605s  + 4.438s  18
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m37.060s  + 4.893s  14
23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m37.269s  + 5.102s  23
24.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m37.429s  + 5.262s  17

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