Free Practice 3: Unfortunate leader Glock, ahead of Massa and Rosberg

Timo Glock in a Toyota is the latest leader of the tests at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain. He dominated this third testing session ahead of a rather comfortable Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and the ever-consistent Nico Rosberg in the Williams, who is always at the top on Friday and Saturday mornings.

The final practice session is usually a scene of confusion as some drivers choose to run with a heavy fuel load in anticipation of the final part of the afternoon’s qualifying. Others opt for a light load to be ahead during the first and second qualifying sessions. Today, there is no exception with a number of drivers unaccustomed to such positions like Jenson Button or Rubens Barrichello (at the back of the grid).

This final practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix was a mix of emotions for Timo Glock, who set the fastest time of the weekend but had to stop on the track quickly due to a technical issue.

The German clocked a time of 1:32.605 with Super Soft tires, enough to topple the reigning world champion and push him back by more than 0.3 seconds.

But on the next lap, with five minutes remaining, Glock’s TF109 appears to suffer some sort of electrical failure and is forced to stop on the roadside.

Felipe Massa with his F60 on soft tires significantly improves his time in the very last minutes of the session, overshadowing the 2009 free practice star, Nico Rosberg, who was pushed to third place. Given the pace of the F60, it’s easy to assume that the Brazilian had little fuel in order to make it into Q2. As for the German, he continued developing the new package for his FW31.

Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), who was the fastest for a large part of the hour, eventually fell to fourth place, while Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari), who seems to have found a certain rhythm, is fifth.

Nelson Piquet (Renault) is more performant and productive than yesterday as he achieves the sixth fastest time ahead of Robert Kubica’s BMW and Kazuki Nakajima’s Williams. Jarno Trulli in the other TF109 seems to be fueled up and finishes ninth, while Nick Heidfeld completes the top ten.

Heikki Kovalainen lost a bit of time at the start of the session with a small mechanical issue on his McLaren, but quickly returned to the track to ultimately record the 12th fastest time ahead of Fernando Alonso in the second Renault.

Once again, Alonso remained at the bottom of the time sheets for much of the session, and it was only the change of tires that offered him a modest 13th place. Unlike his teammate Piquet, who is aiming for Q2 for the first time this year, the Spaniard is focusing on Q3.

Adrian Sutil is 14th for Force India ahead of the Brawn drivers, with Jenson Button in front of Rubens Barrichello. The BGP 001s are about one second behind the leader, but the fuel level is once again criticized.

Sebastien Buemi is 17th for Toro Rosso while his teammate, Sébastien Bourdais, had a mechanical problem on his STR4 limiting his number of laps. The Frenchman is the slowest behind Mark Webber driving the second Red Bull and Giancarlo Fisichella in the second Force India.

Free Practice 3 Results – Sakhir – Saturday, April 25, 2009: