P11 for Max in final Melbourne practice

Published on 14 March 2015 by Stefan Meens

After a mixed Friday, in which he made plenty of progress in the first free practice session but was sidelined for most of free practice 2, Max Verstappen picked up some valuable track time in the third and final practice session. The rookie completed 16 laps. He ended the last session before heading into qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix in in P11 (1:29.925).

As the 60-minute session starts, both Saubers and Max' team mate Carlos Sainz are the first out on track. Shortly after, Max heads out as well. After twenty minutes, with the traditional front running teams remaining in the puts, the Dutchman sets the fastest time so far.

The strategy throughout the paddock appears to be to run on the medium (the harder of the two compounds this weekend) tyre before en-mass switching to softs at the end of free practice 3. Max sticks to the same plan and is able to improve his lap times in the final quarter of the session. He climbs up to P9 with a 1:29.925 and is in the middle of an even quicker time before hitting traffic. It means his team mate as well as Sauber rookie Felipe Nasr are able to to beat Max' time by only a couple of hundreds of a second. The 17-year-old therefore finishes the session in eleventh.

Meanwhile, sister team Red Bull Racing fails to get a lot of track time due to a transmission issue with the Renault power unit. The Milton Keynes based squad ends the session near the bottom of the timing sheets, where they are joined by McLaren. The British team are once again plagued by technical issues and end the session over 3.5 seconds adrift from the front runners.

At the front, it is once again Mercedes that sets the pace. This time, Lewis Hamilton is quickest, beating Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel and his team mate Nico Rosberg. Williams follow in fourth and fifth with Kimi Raikkonen completing the top six. Elsewhere, Manor again failed to make it out on track and are expected to be sidelined the rest of the weekend.

Australian Grand Prix – Albert Park – Saturday 14 March 

FREE PRACTICE 3
	Name	           Team	        Best	        Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	   Mercedes	1:27.867	11
2	Sebastian Vettel   Ferrari	1:28.563	13
3	Nico Rosberg	   Mercedes	1:28.821	14
4	Valtteri Bottas	   Williams	1:28.912	14
5	Felipe Massa	   Williams	1:28.988	18
6	Kimi Raikkonen	   Ferrari	1:29.017	13
7	Romain Grosjean	   Lotus	1:29.481	12
8	Pastor Maldonado   Lotus	1:29.864	15
9	Carlos Sainz 	   Toro Rosso	1:29.869	19
10	Felipe Nasr	   Sauber	1:29.934	24
11	Max Verstappen	   Toro Rosso	1:29.952	16
12	Marcus Ericsson	   Sauber	1:30.613	21
13	Nico Hulkenberg	   Force India	1:30.741	14
14	Sergio Perez	   Force India	1:30.993	17
15	Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull	1:31.185	10
16	Kevin Magnussen	   McLaren	1:31.391	14
17	Jenson Button	   McLaren	1:31.666	13
18	Daniil Kvyat	   Red Bull	1:32.830	6

Via Twitter and Facebook we'll keep you updated throughout the test followed by a full report on Verstappen.nl at the end of the day’s action. You can find the schedule for the Australian Grand Prix here. Don't forget to check out the weekend’s photo album.