Mark Webber concluded practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix on top of the timesheets.
The Red Bull Racing driver bounced back in style from an engine failure in FP2 to go fastest today ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
With rain threatening to hit Sepang in the course of the session, the teams quickly sent their cars out to get some laps in. The Red Bulls and Ferraris set the early pace until the halfway point.
Lewis Hamilton then put soft tyres on and embarked on his first flying lap. The McLaren Mercedes was the first to dip under the 1’34 bracket and easily improved the leading time to a rapid 1’33’’559. His team-mate Jenson Button joined him at the top of the classification.
There was some calm before the storm in the second part of the session, most of the drivers waiting for the last ten minutes to go out for a final quick run.
Webber lapped slightly faster than Hamilton to emerge on top. Vettel could have made it a Red Bull one-two had he not been held off a little bit on his flying lap. He eventually finished third, 45 thousandth of a second away from his team-mate.
Alonso put his Ferrari in fourth position, 0.2s slower than Webber. Michael Schumacher set the fifth fastest time to finish nearly one tenth of a second ahead of his team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Jenson Button, Felipe Massa, Rubens Barrichello and Robert Kubica rounded off the top ten.
Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
01 | Mark Webber | Red Bull Renault | 1.33.542 | 17 | |
02 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren Mercedes | 1.33.559 | +0.017 | 14 |
03 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Renault | 1.33.587 | +0.045 | 17 |
04 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1.33.751 | +0.209 | 19 |
05 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes GP | 1.33.992 | +0.450 | 15 |
06 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes GP | 1.33.090 | +0.148 | 13 |
07 | Jenson Button | McLaren Mercedes | 1.34.113 | +0.571 | 16 |
08 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1.34.174 | +0.632 | 15 |
09 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams Cosworth | 1.34.540 | +0.998 | 13 |
10 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 1.34.549 | +1.007 | 17 |
11 | Adrian Sutil | Force India Mercedes | 1.34.623 | +1.081 | 11 |
12 | Sébastien Buemi | Toro Rosso Ferrari | 1.34.673 | +1.131 | 19 |
13 | Nico Hulkenberg | Williams Cosworth | 1.34.882 | +1.340 | 13 |
14 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India Mercedes | 1.34.957 | +1.415 | 16 |
15 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso Ferrari | 1.35.026 | +1.484 | 16 |
16 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1.35.076 | +1.534 | 17 |
17 | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber Ferrari | 1.35.477 | +1.935 | 18 |
18 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber Ferrari | 1.36.404 | +2.862 | 19 |
19 | Timo Glock | Virgin Racing Cosworth | 1.37.299 | +3.757 | 15 |
20 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus Cosworth | 1.37.369 | +3.827 | 16 |
21 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus Cosworth | 1.38.161 | +4.619 | 18 |
22 | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin Racing Cosworth | 1.38.783 | +5.241 | 13 |
23 | Bruno Senna | HRT F1 Cosworth | 1.39.868 | +6.326 | 19 |
24 | Karun Chandhok | HRT F1 Cosworth | 1.39.895 | +6.353 | 16 |