German Practice Three: Williams back in top ten

After seeing their drivers finish the Friday practice in ninth and thirteenth, with Kazuki Nakajima leading team-mate Nico Rosberg, the Williams team would prepare for the final practice session and then qualifying for the 2009 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring circuit.

The final practice session would start with a dry track and cloudy skies but with again the threat of rain. The practice session would get underway. With nearly half the session completed Nico would set a time of 1m:33.486s to move into second, with Button fastest with a 1m:33.421s. But Hamilton would move ahead of Button with a 1m:32.331s. He would improve on this with a 1m:31.965 running on the harder tyres. Nico was still in second but almost one second behind. Button was third, followed by Webber, Sutil, and Alonso. But Kazuki would change the order moving into third with 1m:33.094s.

With the clouds getting darker Webber would move up into second with his latest lap of 1m:32.919s. With forty minutes run Nico was out on the super-soft tyres and would set a time of 1m:31.987s to go second to Hamilton by just 0.002s. Hamilton would improve with a 1m:31.252s on the super soft tyres. He would lower this with a 1m:31.121s.

As the teams prepared fro their practice qualifying runs the order was Hamilton from Nico, Webber, Fisichella, Vettel, Massa, and Sutil in seventh. As the drivers started on their quick laps Massa would move up to third Button was now fifth fastest with 1m:32.279s. Raikkonen is the next to improve significantly moving up to second, with a 1m:31.615s using the softer tyres. Hamilton still was fastest, ahead of Raikkonen, Nico, Massa and Button. Kazuki would move up to sixth while Trulli was now in third place.

With the end of the session Webber would improve to be fifth with 1m:31.610s. Vettel was now fourth with 1m:31.542s. So with the end of the session Hamilton was fastest from Alonso, Massa, Vettel, Webber, and Raikkonen in sixth.

Pos  Driver        Team			     Time     Laps
 1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:31.121 16
 2.  Alonso        Renault              (B)  1:31.340 18
 3.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  1:31.351 20
 4.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:31.542 17
 5.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:31.610 16
 6.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)  1:31.615 19
 7.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  1:31.620 23
 8.  Rosberg       AT&T Williams-Toyota (B)  1:31.690 20
 9.  Nakajima      AT&T Williams-Toyota (B)  1:31.731 20
10.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           (B)  1:31.928 21
11.  Button        Brawn GP-Mercedes    (B)  1:32.009 22
12.  Glock         Toyota               (B)  1:32.022 20
13.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes (B)  1:32.104 20
14.  Barrichello   Brawn GP-Mercedes    (B)  1:32.124 13
15.  Fisichella    Force India-Mercedes (B)  1:32.135 21
16.  Piquet        Renault              (B)  1:32.223 15
17.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:32.239 23
18.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           (B)  1:32.269 20
19.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:32.742 18
20.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:32.883 21