Hamilton Tops FP3 Session Despite Spin

Nov 14, 2015
2 min read

After overnight storms in the Interlagos area, all of the rubber that was laid down by everyone yesterday was washed away. Track temperatures were making a steep climb as morning sun broke through the clouds.

The session was slow to start with many drivers doing slow install laps, but Felipe Nasr led the way in the early parts with many of the top runners choosing to stay in the garage; no soft tyres made an appearance.

20 minutes into the session Lewis Hamilton stopped out on track in the second sector with an apparent gearbox issue. "No Gears" was his call on the radio. Hamilton managed to do a quick reset and get the car back to the garage without causing any stoppage to the session.

At the halfway mark as Hamilton made his way back on to the track, he and teammate Nico Rosberg were trading fastest laps on the prime tyre. It looks clear that this could be a very close weekend between the two Mercedes drivers.

In the 35th minute of the session on a quick lap, Hamilton got into a strange spin through the penultimate corner of the lap. The tyres seemed to give up on him quite early in the corner; Lewis was very perplexed by the issue.

With 20 minutes left on the clock a lot of drivers were diving into the pits to get the soft tyres fitted onto their cars, in preparation for their low fuel runs ready for qualifying.

As the clock ticked by Hamilton went fastest on a 1:12:070; Rosberg followed shortly after but was just a tenth shy of his champion team mate.

Qualifying is set to be an intense battle for all involved.

Top 10 fastest times:

1st: Hamilton (Mercedes) 1:12:070

2nd: Rosberg (Mercedes) +0.123

3rd: Vettel (Ferrari) +0.690

4th: Raikkonen (Ferrari) +1.026

5th: Bottas (Williams) +1.265

6th: Hulkenberg (Force India) +1.275

7th: Grosjean (Lotus) +1.367

8th: Perez (Force India) +1.436

9th: Maldonado (Lotus) + 1.464