Free Practice 3: Hamilton shakes things up before qualifying!

For this final practice session, the air temperature was 31°C, 35°C on the track, and the humidity was 60%. The fastest time was set by Lewis Hamilton ahead of Vettel, Rosberg, Kovalainen, and Kubica. Button, the championship favorite, is in 14th place in this session.

McLaren perfectly succeeded in adapting their car to the Singapore track after experiencing difficulties yesterday. Lewis Hamilton holds, at the end of this session, almost three-tenths of a second lead over Vettel and seven-tenths over Nico Rosberg. The gaps are then relatively tight for the rest of the field. Notably, Fisichella is at the back with a time of 1:50.039, placing him more than a second behind his teammate. Romain Grosjean, hindered by physical issues, is in the second-to-last position but only six-tenths behind Fernando Alonso.

Adrian Sutil was in 5th place, but the final timed assault at the end of the session saw him drop to 17th position, 1.5 seconds off the best time and 3 tenths from the top 10. His teammate, Liuzzi, is just ahead of him in 16th position. While Vettel appears to be perfectly confident on this track, it seems that Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello didn’t push to the limit this morning after their mishap with the walls in the second session on Friday. Button, for his part, remains as cautious as ever.

Buemi delivered a great performance and placed his Toro Rosso in the top 10, sandwiched between the two Toyotas. The Ferraris, as Stefano Domenicali feared, find themselves outside the top 10. Kimi Räikkönen is 13th, 1.2 seconds off Hamilton but 5 tenths from third place.

All the cars take to the track very quickly for an installation lap, to ensure that all onboard systems are functioning perfectly, and to start the session’s work under good conditions. Romain Grosjean is the first to challenge the stopwatch with a time of 1:52:436 on super-soft tires. Meanwhile, Jaime Alguersuari encounters a problem with his car and gets stuck at the pit exit.

Räikkönen is quick to improve the benchmark time with a lap of 1:50.347, while there are still 40 minutes remaining in the session and the on-track activity is becoming more intense. At this moment, Kubica brings out the heavy artillery and clocks a time of 1:49.679 on soft tires (the hardest ones). Rosberg, with the same tire specification, improves with a 1:49.447. But Kubica takes back his lead with a 1:49.434. Only the Red Bulls have not left their garage to challenge the clock, while Lewis Hamilton posts an excellent 1:48.346, a second better than everyone else at this point. Vettel, Kovalainen, Barrichello, and Heidfeld improve but remain far from Lewis Hamilton.

At mid-session, Mark Webber finally takes to the track and records a time of 1:50.182, placing him in 12th position, while all the other drivers have returned to the pits to analyze telemetry and optimize their settings. Sutil starts a long stint and improves his time several times to finish with a 1:49.122. Glock, Rosberg, Barrichello, and Kovalainen finally join Hamilton under the 1:49.000 mark. Kovalainen is one-tenth behind the Englishman, still in the lead, and ahead of Glock, Barrichello, Rosberg, Alonso, and Sutil.

There are 15 minutes left, and all the drivers are on the track trying to improve their times. In this game, it’s once again Lewis Hamilton who performs best, improving his mark to 1:48.197. A few minutes later, Vettel takes the lead with a 1:47.909 while Hamilton explores the track run-offs. But his response doesn’t take long, as the Englishman sets a 1:47.632 on super-soft tires a few minutes before the end of the session and will not be caught again.

Results of Free Practice 3 – Singapore Grand Prix – Saturday, September 26, 2009: