Image courtesy of Scuderia Ferrari
Sebastian Vettel kept Ferrari on top for a second successive practice session in third practice for the Austrian Grand Prix as rain played its part in the session.
Vettel posted a benchmark time of 1:09.994, 0.017 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who failed to beat Vettel’s time afterwards despite enjoying a smoother session than yesterday.
Kimi Raikkonen followed Hamilton in third, just under two tenths behind the best to confirm Ferrari’s strong pace over a single lap around the Red Bull Ring. Sergio Perez put the Force India in a session-best fourth, with Nico Rosberg finding himself fifth and three tenths off the fastest time.
Williams ended the session sixth and seventh, with Felipe Massa in the leading FW37. Max Verstappen, Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado in the two Lotuses rounded out the top ten with car troubles affecting the latter two during the 60 minutes.
Teams were prevented from doing a qualifying simulations on the rapider super-softs as Fernando Alonso grinded to a stop in his McLaren on the pit straight midway through the session, thus bringing out the red flags and eliminating the teams’ already narrow window for runs due to the incoming rain arriving.
Both Mercedes and Ferrari sent out their drivers on the super softs in an attempt to squeeze in a run, only to find themselves cautiously circulating back to the pits and Raikkonen, Vettel and Sainz being three of several drivers to have an off-track excursion while running on full-wet tyres towards the end of the session.
