Alonso hits the front for Ferrari
Date published : 13 Mar 2010 - 09:11:09
Fernando Alonso gave the rest of the grid a first true glimpse of Ferrari's potential in Bahrain by topping the final practice session, as the leading runners finally tried some low-fuel runs.After spending Friday's running focussing on longer stints, Ferrari figured much further up the timesheets for most of Saturday morning and Alonso set the quickest lap of all with eight minutes remaining his rapid 1m54.099s effort completed on super-soft tyres.It put the pre-race favourite 0.269s clear of Friday pacesetter Nico Rosberg, who maintained his practice superiority over legendary Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher.Formula 1 returnee Schumacher though remained among the quickest runners and cut his deficit in Rosberg to under 0.2s after admitting Friday's four tenths of a second gap was too large for his sky-high standards.However, his young German compatriot may still have ended up a similar margin ahead had he been able to match his pace through the first two sectors of his final lap in the third one, having been on course to depose Alonso.After suffering a driveshaft problem in second practice, Mark Webber enjoyed a much-needed trouble-free session to slot into third for Red Bull with team-mate Sebastian Vettel 0.146s further back in fifth.Felipe Massa took seventh in the second Ferrari, but may well have been a couple of places higher had he not run slightly wide over the kerb on his final run while going onto the backstraight.World champion Jenson Button goes into his first qualifying session for McLaren having posted the seventh quickest final practice effort, his time of 1m55s dead being almost a second off Alonso's pace.Team-mate Lewis Hamilton missed out on a crucial low-fuel qualifying simulation, however, after McLaren detected a problem around his MP4-25's left-front wheel which kept him in the garage after just eight laps. Earlier in the session new boy Virgin Racing had experienced a far more alarming wheel problem when the left-front on Timo Glock's car worked loose as he came out of the tricky downhill turn six. Although Hispania's Bruno Senna was running close behind him at the time, thankfully the wheel rolled out of harm's way towards the outside barriers without collecting any other car.That incident had come as drivers had finally started to get down to some serious running in the session after a quite opening 15 minutes to the action.RBR's Vettel was the first to post a time after 17 minutes, his first lap of the day of 1m55.178s over 0.3s quicker than Friday's benchmark to indicate that teams would be running significantly lower fuel throughout this session ahead of qualifying.Ferrari didn't take much longer to show its hand, however, with first Alonso (1m55.105s) nudging ahead before the sister car of Massa became the first driver to complete the lengthened circuit in the 1m54s.The Brazilian, preparing for his first qualifying session since he suffered serious head injuries in Hungary last July, stayed on top until Alonso set the trend for low-fuel dashes late on to seal the top spot.With the expected front runners all pretty much behind forming up behind the former world champion on the timesheet, Robert Kubica gave Renault encouragement that it can claim one of the remaining Q3 places by taking eighth ahead of Force India's Tonio Liuzzi and impressive rookie Nico Hulkenberg (Williams).F1's three new squads know already they have no hope of getting any of their cars into Q2, but the private battle amongst them looks set to be fierce after Glock recovered from his wheel drama to slot Virgin back ahead of the two Lotus's in a time that was just five seconds off the pace.The former Toyota man's rookie team-mate Lucas di Grassi completed only two untimed laps however due to a gearbox problem which meant he was unable to select seventh gear.Things were even worse for the luckless Karun Chandhok the Indian driver again forced to watch the entire session from the sidelines after a fresh hydraulics glitch struck his HRT just when the team thought the car was ready to fire up.Bahrain Grand Prix free practice session 3 times 1 ALONSO Ferrari 1m54.099s 2 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m54.368s3 WEBBER Red Bull 1m54.500s4 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m54.533s5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m54.646s6 MASSA Ferrari 1m54.739s7 BUTTON McLaren 1m55.000s8 KUBICA Renault 1m55.331s9 LIUZZI Force India 1m55.432s10 HULKENBERG Williams 1m55.461s11 SUTIL Force India 1m55.521s12 HAMILTON McLaren 1m55.860s13 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m56.063s14 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m56.259s15 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m56.295s16 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m56.504s17 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m56.530s18 PETROV Renault 1m56.811s19 GLOCK Virgin 1m59.173s20 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m59.789s21 TRULLI Lotus 2m01.259s22 SENNA HRT 2m04.001s23 DI GRASSI Virgin no time24 CHANDHOK HRT no time
