Chinese GP - Practice Session 3 - Vettel topped all 3 practice sessions

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Saturday Practice Session - 3, UBS Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai
Chilly morning in China, cooler temperature in practice session are some of the advantage that suits Pirelli Tyres. The session was too quick with faster lap times as much as 3sec faster than that in the FP2.

Nevertheless, it was Sebastian Vettel again who is on top. Topping all three of the practice sessions and breaking the barrier of 1min 34sec yet shows his pace and confidence. But Red Bull seems to have problems which could hamper their winning streak in Chinese GP with Mark Webber stranded after technical issues with only 5laps on board set 15th fastest time only. KERS issue that cause Webber a podium in Malaysia GP could again be a cause of concern for the leaders.

Mclaren continues their mark with Button taking the lead over Hamilton to inch closer to the Vettel Red Bull. Button was only 2tenth of a second slower. Mercedes again showed the pace with Nico Rosberg coming 4th again.

Alonso with new aero package on his car was ahead of his team mate Massa on 5th.

Petrov in lead Renault came 7th while Nick Heidfeld was only 11th fastest.

Both the Force India got in top 10 as Adrian on 8th and Birthday Boy Paul Di Resta on 10th separated by Michael Schumacher in 9th. It look like aero updates on Force India cars brought them back in contention with Mercedes and Renault. But a long way to go.

The field in the middle look way too competitive as 11 guys separated by a second only from P6 to P16.

The damper circuit was too much colder to be handled by the drivers as some of them had off track time with Pirelli tyres not warming up or some other issues. Trulli, Hamilton, D’Ambrosio, Schumacher, Karthikeyan, Sutil and Webber all showed their moves outside track.

The third practice session saw the duo's matching the times as Sauber came 12th and 13th, Toro Rosso separated by Mark Webber came 14th and 16th.

The slower Williams came 17th and 18th. Then came the two Lotus but they are not looking as good as they were in Australia and Malaysia with their lap times dropping to match the other new comers.

Virgin with overnight tweaks come back ahead of HRT but still HRT in 1min 40sec.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull - Renault	1min 34.968sec		13
2	Jenson Button	Mclaren - Mercedes	1min 35.176sec	0.208	15
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mclaren - Mercedes	1min 35.373sec	0.405	14
4	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1min 35.677sec	0.709	18
5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1min 35.818sec	0.850	17
6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1min 35.971sec	1.003	15
7	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1min 36.098sec	1.130	18
8	Adrian Sutil	Force India - Mercedes	1min 36.125sec	1.157	15
9	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1min 36.404sec	1.173	14
10	Paul Di Resta	Force India - Mercedes	1min 36.370sec	1.402	18
11	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1min 36.404sec	1.436	16
12	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber - Ferrari	1min 36.582sec	1.614	18
13	Sergio Perez	Sauber - Ferrari	1min 36.596sec	1.628	17
14	Sebastien Buemi	STR - Ferrari	1min 36.717sec	1.749	16
15	Mark Webber	Red Bull - Renault	1min 36.896sec	1.928	5
16	Jaime Alguersuari	STR - Ferrari	1min 36.953sec	1.985	14
17	Rubens Barrichello	Williams - Cosworth	1min 37.007sec	2.039	20
18	Pastor Maldonado	Williams - Cosworth	1min 37.304sec	2.336	18
19	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus - Renault	1min 38.176sec	3.208	12
20	Jarno Trulli	Lotus - Renault	1min 38.739sec	3.771	12
21	Timo Glock	Virgin - Cosworth	1min 39.938sec	4.970	17
22	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Virgin - Cosworth	1min 39.998sec	5.030	16
23	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT - Cosworth	1min 40.593sec	5.625	17
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT - Cosworth	1min 40.881sec	5.913	18