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The sun was breaking through the clouds as the final Free Practice session of the weekend got underway. It was reasonably hot by the mountains with an Air Temperature of 14 degrees Celsius and a Track Temperature of 30 degrees Celsius.
A flurry of cars exited the pit-lane as the session started, with Sauber's Adrian Sutil being first out on a set of Prime tyres. Most of the field completed installation laps and headed back to their garage before going out to start a run, Sebastian Vettel being one of those.
With just over 52 minutes of the session remaining, it was McLaren's Kevin Magnussen who set the first timed lap with a 1.16.696, some 7 seconds slower than yesterdays best times. Rosberg for Mercedes quickly bettered the Dane's best lap time on the soft tyre with a 1.12.987. Magnussen then countered with a 1.11.408, whilst Caterham's Marcus Ericsson popped into 3rd place.
A lot of drivers then set their first timed laps of the session including Hamilton, Hulkenberg, Chilton, Maldonado, Bianchi and Kobayashi, although all were slower relative to yesterday, with teams clearly focusing on longer runs for tomorrow's race.
Jenson Button had a poor start to the session, with the Briton having a minor off-track excursion into Turn 1, complaining of a lack of engine braking. It appeared to be more serious than initially thought, as the 2009 World Champion came down the pit-lane with his rear brakes on fire, which damaged the floor too, meaning that he would be on the back-foot going into Qualifying.
With 40 minutes remaining, the Top 10 looked like this – Massa, Bottas, Kvyat, Magnussen, Hulkenberg, Vergne, Hamilton, Raikkonen and Rosberg. However, Raikkonen jumped up to 5th place shortly afterwards.
It became apparent that Vettel had consistent, if not the fastest race pace compared to his rivals. The vast majority of drivers were on the soft compound of tyre, as opposed to the super-soft 'option'.
Rosberg hit the top of the timesheets with just over 20 minutes remaining, knocking to two Williams' down to 2nd and 3rd place. Team-mate Hamilton was in 5th place, just behind the Ferrrari of Fernando Alonso.
The running became rather stagnant with around 15 minutes remaining, with Romain Grosjean being the only driver on track, trying to better his 16th position. Other drivers who were disappointed with their pace included Gutierrez and Maldonado.
Contrasting that to Kvyat currently in 5th place, Bottas and Massa in 2nd and 3rd and Hulkenberg in 7th, who were all relatively pleased with their running thus far.
With just over 10 minutes remaining, the super-soft compound of tyre made its first appearance in the hands of Nico Hulkenberg but was only good enough for 7th amidst the soft tyre runners. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso then followed the German and went 2nd fastest. The vast majority of drivers exited the pit-lane to do a run on the quicker tyre to gauge an idea of their pace to Qualifying.
Alonso then bettered his time and went quickest overall, however it was quickly bettered by Bottas whilst Magnussen improved to 7th. Sutil improved to 15th, Massa then went fastest and Kvyat 5th. Raikkonen could only imagine 11th with just over 4 minutes remaining, meanwhile the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg went 2nd.
Team-mate Hamilton then went 0.003 seconds faster than Massa. Vettel also looked to be on a strong lap but Caterham's Kamui Kobayashi spun off at the last corner which brought out the yellow flags, however the Japanese driver managed to get going again shortly afterwards.
Bottas then went quicker than Hamilton and Kvyat improved to 4th in the dying moments. Rosberg could only manage 5th place, Massa finished up in 3rd, Alonso 6th, Ricciardo was 7th, Magnussen 8th, Raikkonen 9th and Vettel rounded off the top ten.
Qualifying gets underway at 13.00 BST (14.00 Local Time) and we will be reporting on the news and events that unfold throughout.
Tom Brooks
Chief UK Editor
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