Malaysia GP Free Practice 3: Mercedes lead, McLaren struggle and Lotus explore

It was an almost completely overcast session with occasional sunshine, but that didn’t stop Mercedes from dominating the Free Practice 3 session. Nico Rosberg yet again topped the session, while Lewis Hamilton was his closest rival. Kimi Raikkonen, like he has done all through the weekend, came close to sandwiching the Mercedes drivers, but ended up 1.1 seconds off the pace of his rivals. Sebastian Vettel made his way through the P4 down by 1.3 seconds off the pace of Nico Rosberg, and Hulkenberg was the surprise entrant at P5. At one point both the Force India drivers were in the Top 6.

Ferrari – the only close rival for Mercedes

Both the Lotus drivers needed some solid mileage under their belt, and Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean explored the off track areas in order to gather some extra bit of data under their belt; even so, Maldonado got 20 laps to his name. Lotus have been clearly struggling this weekend, and their top speed would indicate that they are running on a reduced scale to ensure that they finish the race.

Interestingly, Daniel Ricciardo was on the flyer and was outpacing his team-mate but Vettel eventually managed to get an edge towards the end of the session. The Austrian would end up on P6 with 1.6 seconds off the pace of the leaders.

Alonso has been struggling all weekend long as compared to his teammate and he was P7 as the Williams along with Perez rounded off the Top 10.

The STR duo of Kvyat and Vergne were at P11 and P12 and had a handful of laps under their belt. It would be really interesting to see if they could repeat their qualifying performance from Melbourne this weekend. Following Toro Rosso were the Sauber duo of Sutil and Esteban, along with Lotus duo of Grosjean and Maldonado. Marussia once again had a significant edge over their arch rivals Caterham.

McLaren will really have to push hard this weekend

Elsewhere, McLaren were still in the sport, and they were struggling during the installation laps. Kevin was affected by engine problems like yesterday, and Jenson was struggling with the rear end grip. The local media predicts the McLaren drivers to be the dark horses of the weekend, and it was a pity to see them struggle throughout the Free Practice sessions.

Also noteworthy is the fact that the drivers are battling for P3 as the Mercedes have sealed the top two spots. It’s incredibly close downside of the Mercedes drivers, and Kimi is looking like a strong contender for the weekend. Only 0.735 seconds separate the drivers from P3 to P9.

Although qualifying won’t be that important for the weekend, it would be interesting to see who ends up where on the grid.

By Bala Yogesh, reporting from Sepang paddock