Turkish GP : Maldonado encouraging twelfth in FP3

The final practice session for the 2011 Turkish Grand Prix would see both AT&T Williams F1 drivers take to the track early on in the session. Both Pastor Maldonado and Rubens Barrichello would remain in their cars after having returned to their pits. Both drivers appeared to be keen to make up for the lost time that they had in the final Friday practice.

Both drivers would return to the track and by half way in the session Rubens would had only completed seven laps. Prior to his returning to the pit lane Rubens had only set a time good enough for twenty third, 1m:33.669. Fastest time at this point was that of Vettel with a 1m:27.134. Rosberg was second from Webber and Petrov.

As the final twenty minutes of the session commenced drivers would start to set times running on the softer tyre. Buemi would go fastest with a 1m:27.080 ahead of Vettel, Rosberg, Webber and Petrov with just over fifteen minutes remaining. On the softer tyre Massa would go fastest with a 1m:26.883. Vettel would move up to second with a 1m:26.940 but he was running on the harder tyre. Rubens would set his first competitive time with a lap of 1m:29.448 to be nineteenth.

Alonso was now fastest with a 1m:26.819 with just over ten minutes left in the session. More drivers were now out on the track with the softer tyre and it would be Rosberg who would go fastest with a 1m:26.446, only to be passed by Schumacher with a 1m:26.038. Alonso was now third and Massa fourth. But Button and Hamilton would move into third and fourth. Webber would move up to third with a 1m:26.476. Team-mate Vettel would move ahead of Schumacher with a 1m:26.037 to go fastest.

For the AT&T Williams team Pastor would finish the session in twelfth, which was encouraging given his problems on Friday, while Rubens was down in fifteenth. Again Pastor would outpace Rubens as they prepared for qualifying. It was reported that Pastor had not been running with KERS making his time even that much more positive.

Pos  Driver	   Team		  	 Time       Laps
 1.  S Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m26.037s  17
 2.  M Schumacher  Mercedes              1m26.038s  17
 3.  M Webber      Red Bull-Renault      1m26.404s  16
 4.  N Rosberg     Mercedes              1m26.420s  19
 5.  J Button      McLaren-Mercedes      1m26.578s  17
 6.  L Hamilton    McLaren-Mercedes      1m26.726s  14
 7.  V Petrov      Renault               1m26.755s  20
 8.  F Alonso      Ferrari               1m26.819s  12
 9.  F Massa       Ferrari               1m26.883s  12
10.  S Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m27.080s  16
11.  S Perez       Sauber-Ferrari        1m27.121s  20
12.  P Maldonado   Williams-Cosworth     1m27.255s  18
13.  A Sutil       Force India-Mercedes  1m27.318s  19
14.  N Heidfeld    Renault               1m27.379s  17
15.  R Barrichello Williams-Cosworth     1m27.528s  19
16.  P di Resta    Force India-Mercedes  1m27.644s  18
17.  J Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m27.724s  15
18.  K Kobayashi   Sauber-Ferrari        1m27.976s  19
19.  H Kovalainen  Lotus-Renault         1m28.911s  15
20.  J Trulli      Lotus-Renault         1m29.697s  17
21.  J D'Ambrosio  Virgin-Cosworth       1m31.097s  25
22.  T Glock       Virgin-Cosworth       1m31.175s  19
23.  T Liuzzi      HRT-Cosworth          1m31.375s  19
24.  N Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth          1m32.009s  15