Rosberg fastest in final practice

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F1 Grand Prix, GP Germany, Hockenheimringde

Nico Rosberg topped the times in the final free practice session ahead of qualifying for the German Grand Prix. As Mercedes continued to dominate, Fernando Alonso was once more the closest challenger, followed by the Williams drivers.

Still in burning hot conditions, the final practice of qualifying got underway with Mercedes being particularly active on track. The team aimed to get some more feedback from the tyres, made more obvious by the team asking Hamilton not to back off for traffic in order to get a realistic idea of how the tyres behave under stress.

By the halfway mark, Alonso and Ricciardo were the only ones not to have set a time. Raikkonen on the other hand sat atop the timesheet after he became the first man to switch to the supersoft tyres. 8 laps later though, the Finn's session is over as Ferrari opt to change an element in the fuel pump to avoid issues in qualifying.

Max Chilton is also stuck in the garage after just 7 laps as Marussia investigate an electrical glitch on the car. 10 minutes from the end, Caterham's Ericsson is also out of his car early with a hydraulics issue on his Caterham CT05.

When Ricciardo did eventually end up on track, he soon reported balance issues and understeer, similar behaviour as Sebastian Vettel is experiencing. The latter repeatedly went wide and off through turn 1.

At the very end of the session, with everybody doing shorter runs on the quick but highly wearing super softs, Rosberg again emerged on top, quicker than his teammate who is told he's losing time particularly in the hairpin.

Williams is again well in the mix while Red Bull Racing appear to be slightly further away than they were on Friday.

Results

Pos.No.DriverTeamTimeGapLaps
16Nico RosbergMercedes1:17.779-24
244Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:18.3800.60120
314Fernando AlonsoFerrari1:18.3840.60511
419Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1:18.5750.79618
577Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1:18.6110.83219
620Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1:18.7560.97716
73Daniel RicciardoRed Bull Racing-Renault1:18.7690.99013
87Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:18.8421.0638
91Sebastian VettelRed Bull Racing-Renault1:18.8901.11117
1027Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1:19.1271.34819
1126Daniil KvyatStr-Renault1:19.1311.35219
1225Jean-Eric VergneStr-Renault1:19.4701.69120
1322Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1:19.4891.71015
1411Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1:19.5051.72621
1521Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1:19.6011.82223
168Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1:20.0782.29923
1717Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1:20.1982.41921
1813Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1:20.4662.68719
1999Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1:20.8443.0656
2010Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1:21.0183.23921
219Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1:23.0775.29814
224Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1:23.4495.6707