Rosberg comfortably ahead in final practice

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German Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg has kept his team in the lead by going more than a second faster than the competition during the final practice session of the Australian Grand Prix weekend.

The second fastest man this morning in Australia was Jenson Button, albeit nearly 1.4 seconds off the pace. Fernando Alonso placed third fastest for Ferrari while Lewis Hamilton, fastest in FP2 set the fourth best time. Daniel Ricciardo was 5th and fastest for the Renault powered cars.

Notably absent in this top 5 is Williams. Felipe Massa was ranked third until teams switched to the softer tyres. As he failed to improve on his time while others did, Massa ended up in 10th. Still, it could have been worse, as team mate Valtteri Bottas was unable to come out due to a gearbox issue, requiring a change and invoking a 5-place grid penalty for tomorrow's race.

Besides Bottas, Esteban Gutierrez didn't set a time after running into gearbox problems at the start of the session in his Sauber. Romain Grosjean was also in the wars, getting increasingly vexed by an ongoing misfire. With Maldonado stopping the other E22 right at the end, Lotus's woes continued.

Results

Pos.No.DriverTeamTimeGapLaps
16Nico RosbergMercedes1:29.375-15
222Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1:30.7661.39120
314Fernando AlonsoFerrari1:30.8761.50111
444Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:30.9191.54413
53Daniel RicciardoRed Bull Racing-Renault1:30.9701.59513
627Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1:30.9781.60316
77Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:31.1561.78112
820Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1:31.2511.87622
911Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1:31.6652.29017
1019Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1:31.7232.34820
1126Daniil KvyatStr-Renault1:31.9252.55017
121Sebastian VettelRed Bull Racing-Renault1:32.2552.88014
1325Jean-Eric VergneStr-Renault1:32.4173.04216
1417Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1:34.1844.80915
1599Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1:34.1884.81316
1610Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1:34.4135.03819
174Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1:34.7175.34215
1813Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1:34.7545.37915
199Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1:36.1596.78421
2077Valtteri BottasWilliams-MercedesNo time-2
2121Esteban GutierrezSauber-FerrariNo time-2
228Romain GrosjeanLotus-RenaultNo time-4