Free Practice 3: Rosberg, Trulli, Hamilton, the winning trio

Williams driver Nico Rosberg was the fastest during the third practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai circuit. This means that the German has led six out of nine practice sessions since the beginning of the 2009 Formula 1 season.

Jarno Trulli took second place for Toyota while Lewis Hamilton continued to improve McLaren’s performance by finishing third, ahead of championship leader Jenson Button for Brawn GP.

Rosberg, however, had a rather poor start to the session by taking a trip into the gravel at the entrance to the Pitlane at the end of his installation lap. The famous mistake by Lewis Hamilton in 2007.

But he managed to get out of the gravel and return to the pits, and only 20 minutes later, Rosberg was back on track with a lap time of 1:36.968.

Before Rosberg’s return, Kimi Räikkönen was the fastest for Ferrari, even though the former world champion spun at turn 3 immediately after setting his benchmark time.

Nine minutes after losing first place to Rosberg, Räikkönen regained it by 0.047 seconds. All this happened before Trulli in the Toyota set a time on the super soft tires. He then improved the time by 0.6 seconds.

It seemed that his time would remain unbeatable because even Button finished behind by a tenth of a second with his super soft tires. But, in the last minute, Rosberg achieved a superb lap in 1:36.133, 0.139 seconds faster than Trulli.

Hamilton was 0.058 seconds away from taking second place from the Toyota driver but ultimately finished 3rd, pushing Button into fourth position.

Nelson Piquet for Renault takes a surprising fifth place, ahead of Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren), Kazuki Nakajima (Williams), Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari), and Rubens Barrichello (Brawn GP).

Timo Glock (20th) completed only six laps before a gearbox problem disrupted his session. He was forced to return to the pits. A gearbox change and consequently a five-place penalty on the grid are likely.

The two Red Bulls also ran little, and consequently Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel are only 15th and 16th respectively with just a few laps completed.

Fernando Alonso also spent a large part of the session in the Renault garages dealing with various problems. In the end, only six laps were completed.

Free Practice 3 Results – Shanghai – Saturday, April 18, 2009: