Difficult time for Williams in final practice

With the engine rule now in place for the third and final practice session the teams would have to contend with showers just prior to the start of the session. For the Williams team Alex and Nico finished Friday practice in sixth and eighth. The drivers are now running with the engine that they will use for the rest of the weekend.

Albers would be first out in his Spyker. Alex and Nico would both come out for their installation lap. They would both pit. With ten minutes of the session run it would be still wet and no one had set a time. In the Williams pit it was a hive of activity. With forty five minutes remaining we still had not seen a timed lap. Albers would set the first time but was way of the pace of Friday. Sutil was fastest with a 1m:31.177. Fisichella would easily pass this time with a lap of 1m:28.866. The sun was now out and this would see a rush of drivers coming out.

We had yet to see either of the Williams drivers as we came up onto the thirty minute mark. The times would continue to fall. Fastest was now 1m:28.154 from Raikkonen. But Alonso would go half a second quicker, 1m:27.612. A 1m:26.616 from Raikkonen. This was the fastest lap we have seen so far this weekend. Alex was now out for his timed laps. He would be joined by Nico.

Coulthard would have an off at Turn one, but would continue. His first lap would see him seventh, 1m:28.540. Nico would move into sixth with a 1m:28.363. Nico would stop out on the track. Off would come his steering wheel and he was out of the car. His car had slowed suddenly with a failure seeing Nico having to park his car. Alex was now in sixth with a 1m:27.942, but this was 1.33 seconds behind the quickest time of Massa, 1m:26.608.

Nico had dropped to now be in eighth but one would expect him to drop further down the order. Alex had returned to the pits. There was now just fourteen minutes remaining. Nico would be seen running back into the pit lane. Raikkonen was now fastest, 1m:26.106. Fisichella was now in second, 1m:26.454. Alex and Nico were now down in eleventh and twelfth. With five minutes remaining Alex had yet to come back out. With just minutes left it was looking like Alex would not come back out again.

But he would come back out for one flying lap in preparation for qualifying. Alex would sea personal best time in sector one. The same for sector two. He would finish with a time of 1m:27.322 to move into seventh. Nico was down in fifteenth. The session would end with Alex dropping to tenth, some 1.2 seconds slower than Kimi. The finishing order was Raikkonen from Fisichella, Hamilton, Davidson, Massa, Heidfeld, Alonso, Kovalainen, Sato, and Alex.

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time     Laps
 1.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)  1:26.064 14
 2.  Fisichella    Renault              (B)  1:26.454 18
 3.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:26.467 12
 4.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda    (B)  1:26.491 17
 5.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  1:26.547 14
 6.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           (B)  1:26.753 18
 7.  Alonso        McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:26.786 10
 8.  Kovalainen    Renault              (B)  1:26.937 13
 9.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda    (B)  1:27.266 12
10.  Wurz          AT&T Williams-Toyota (B)  1:27.322 9
11.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:27.390 13
12.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           (B)  1:27.753 19
13.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               (B)  1:27.887 13
14.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  1:27.897 16
15.  Barrichello   Honda                (B)  1:28.039 16
16.  Rosberg       AT&T Williams-Toyota (B)  1:28.061 5
17.  Button        Honda                (B)  1:28.119 21
18.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:28.208 12
19.  Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:28.332 15
20.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:28.485 9
21.  Sutil         Spyker-Ferrari       (B)  1:28.678 19
22.  Albers        Spyker-Ferrari       (B)  1:30.547 7