Free Practice 3 – Alonso Shines, Renault Lights Up

Fernando Alonso finished Friday at the top by setting the fastest time in the second practice session. He starts Saturday in the same vein as he again sets the fastest time in the third and final test session.

The two sessions are similar as he finishes each time with an aggressive final lap. Today, he set a time of 1:44.506 after 58 minutes of testing, at the end of the session.

Once again, it was the tires that were decisive, as his soft tires gave him a comfortable margin over the rest of the field. He beat Lewis Hamilton on McLaren, in 2nd place, by six-tenths of a second.

Felipe Massa finishes third for Ferrari but the Brazilian sets his best time on hard tires to ultimately find himself 0.127 seconds behind the Briton.

Nelson Piquet is fourth in the second Renault while Nico Rosberg’s Williams achieves an excellent fifth place. Kimi Räikkönen is only 17th after a mistake.

The winner of the Monza race, Sebastian Vettel led a large part of the session with his Toro Rosso. He made a good first lap. The German remained in the lead thanks to this time until the 35th minute when Piquet beat him by four-tenths of a second.

The Brazilian was then pushed back to 4th position, overtaken by Alonso, Hamilton, and Massa.

Rosberg is therefore 5th, and Jenson Button on Honda also attracts attention as he is in 6th place after fitting soft tires.

The reigning world champion, Räikkönen slid at turn 7. The Finn tried in vain to restart, but his F2008 was too damaged. He retired 15 minutes before the end of the session.

Giancarlo Fisichella is the author of the most ‘spectacular’ incident since the beginning of the weekend as the Roman collided head-on with the safety barrier at turn 10. The Force India driver misjudged the chicane, causing significant damage to his car.

Red Bull accumulates problems with this time David Coulthard, who, following an incident on his installation lap, is forced to remain in the pits until the end of the session (he actually only had 3 minutes left!).

His teammate Mark Webber also went off track at the same level as his crash the previous day and finishes today in 8th place, just behind Robert Kubica (BMW) and ahead of Sébastian Vettel. Bourdais is in 10th position.

Heikki Kovalainen only achieved the 13th fastest time after narrowly avoiding the wall due to a mistake on his last fast lap. He ranks behind Heidfeld in 11th and Nakajima in 12th.

Free Practice 3 Results – Singapore GP – September 27, 2008