Spanish GP - Practice Session 3 - Vettel claims the top position

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Saturday Practice Session - 3, Spanish Grand Prix, Circuit De Catalunya, Barcelona

World Champion waited in the garage for the whole third practice session only to come out in the closing stages to set the flying lap ahead of everyman on track. With only completing 6 laps, he not only set the fastest lap but also specified the pace of Red Bull. He set 1min 21.707sec only 1hundredth of a second faster than Mark Webber.

This shows how strong Red Bull and is the strongest contender to win the race.

Michael Schumacher put his Mercedes in third position ahead of both the Mclaren's. Lewis and Jenson button followed the seven time world champion. The top 6 slots are filled by the three most dominating constuctor contenders to win the Spanish Grand Prix.

Kamui Kobayashi drove exceptionally well to put his Sauber ahead of strong Renault of Vitaly Petrov. Nick Heidfeld in the other Renault caught fire in middle of his slowing lap. Renault noticed that Nick car is running hot while he left the pits, however they considered it to be a faulty sensor. but it was not. His car cooked up in fire as he drove on the circuit and his team was shouting "fire, get out quickly, get out quickly". Nick parked his car on turn 10 but the fire was intense enough to damage the car and would held him from taking part in Qualifying.

Ferrari rear wing upgrades were rejected by the FIA and they have to run the car on Turkish Grand Prix specification. That put Ferrari out of contention again, but the strong performance during the race by Ferrari during Turkish GP is the only hope for the team. Rubens put a strong performance in struggling Williams to put the car on 10th of the time sheet followed by other Ferrari driver Felipe Massa.

Sergio Perez in the second Sauber was only 12th fastest followed by Rookie Pastor Maldonado. It was a trouble free session for the rookie.

Toro Rosso and Force India struggle to improve in comparison to other teams. Lotus continues to improve and put a performance to match midfielders in 1min26. Virgin and HRT take the last position with Liuzzi separating the two Virgin cars for 21st and Indian Driver Narain Karthikeyan was last on the field due to DRS problem in the car. DRS was not working on his car.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull - Renault	1min 21.707sec		6
2	Mark Webber	Red Bull - Renault	1min 21.791sec	0.084	17
3	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1min 23.057sec	1.350	16
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mclaren - Mercedes	1min 23.068sec	1.361	13
5	Jenson Button	Mclaren - Mercedes	1min 23.214sec	1.507	14
6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1min 23.397sec	1.690	18
7	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber - Ferrari	1min 23.669sec	1.962	17
8	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1min 24.043sec	2.336	18
9	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1min 24.270sec	2.563	11
10	Rubens Barrichello	Williams - Cosworth	1min 24.318sec	2.611	18
11	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1min 24.322sec	2.615	17
12	Sergio Perez	Sauber - Ferrari	1min 24.329sec	2.622	19
13	Pastor Maldonado	Williams - Cosworth	1min 24.399sec	2.692	17
14	Sebastien Buemi	STR - Ferrari	1min 24.535sec	2.828	16
15	Adrian Sutil	Force India - Mercedes	1min 24.695sec	2.988	18
16	Jaime Alguersuari	STR - Ferrari	1min 24.722sec	3.015	14
17	Paul Di Resta	Force India - Mercedes	1min 25.223sec	3.516	19
18	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus - Renault	1min 26.236sec	4.529	11
19	Jarno Trulli	Lotus - Renault	1min 27.000sec	5.293	20
20	Timo Glock	Virgin - Cosworth	1min 27.706sec	5.999	20
21	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT - Cosworth	1min 28.330sec	6.623	17
22	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Virgin - Cosworth	1min 29.057sec	7.350	18
23	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1min 29.200sec	7.493	6
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT - Cosworth	1min 29.562sec	7.855	16