Mercedes AMG on top in final practice

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F1 Grand Prix, GP Great-Britain, Silverstone Circuitgb

Mercedes AMG proved to be on top of their game once again as both drivers easily stayed ahead of the competition during the final practice session at Silverstone, ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session.

With 20°C under a mild sun, the weather proved to be much more favourable than on Friday, resulting again in a large number of laps completed around the Silverstone circuit.

Most drivers worked through more tyre evaluations as their behaviour is likely different that during yesterday's cooler cooler conditions. Still, despite more reasonable temperatures, several drivers, most notably both men at Ferrari had difficulty finding more speed out of the medium as they both proved quite pacey on the harder compound.

Mercedes on the other hand was clearly faster on the medium, setting the fastest two times in the closing seconds of the session on this tyre. Vettel and Webber are 4 tenths off of the Mercedes AMG cars.

The most notable incident during FP3 however was Sergio Pérez' tyre failure. Somewhere halfway through Copse, the left rear tyre sort of exploded on the McLaren, throwing pieces of rubber all over the track. A short red flag period was introduced to clean up the mess, and by the time Pérez returned to the pits, only the outer tyre wall was still on the rim, all the rest was still out on track in hundreds of different pieces.

The worrying bit here is that this are the Pirelli tyres that feature the new bonding glue. While the tyres previously delaminated, it seems there is now another issue popping up for the Italian tyre manufacturer.

Results

Pos.No.DriverTeamTimeGapLaps
19Nico RosbergMercedes1:31.487-18
210Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:31.6330.14620
31Sebastian VettelRed Bull Racing-Renault1:32.0370.55020
42Mark WebberRed Bull Racing-Renault1:32.0780.59117
58Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1:32.3910.90418
619Daniel RicciardoStr-Ferrari1:32.4400.95319
73Fernando AlonsoFerrari1:32.4540.96718
87Kimi RäikkönenLotus-Renault1:32.4590.97222
915Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1:32.5361.04917
1014Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1:32.5711.08417
1118Jean-Eric VergneStr-Ferrari1:32.5801.09315
125Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1:32.9261.43918
1316Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1:33.1331.64617
1411Nico HulkenbergSauber-Ferrari1:33.2251.73816
154Felipe MassaFerrari1:33.2731.78616
1617Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault1:33.3091.82225
1712Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1:33.3701.88319
186Sergio PerezMcLaren-Mercedes1:33.6072.1209
1920Charles PicCaterham-Renault1:34.9713.48418
2022Jules BianchiMarussia-Cosworth1:34.9903.50317
2123Max ChiltonMarussia-Cosworth1:36.6945.20716
2221Giedo van der GardeCaterham-Renault1:37.4435.95618