» Bahrain GP 3rd Practice: Alonso on top

Fernando Alonso fired a serious warning shot to the other teams by setting the fastest time in the third and final practice session in the lead-up this afternoon’s maiden qualifying session for the 2010 season.

In a session typically used to prepare for and simulate qualifying-style runs, Alonso’s fastest time of 1:54.099 was the fastest of the weekend so far on the extended Sakhir circuit.

As if to prove that he will be a force to be reckoned with all weekend, Mercedes GP’s Nico Rosberg again held his own in this session, and finished just 0.269s slower than the Ferrari despite setting quicker sector times in the first and second sectors of the 6.299km circuit.

Mark Webber recovered from his lost mileage in the second practice session (courtesy of a driveshaft problem) and lapped third-quickest of the drivers. He was trailed by Michael Schumacher, who has consistently been about 0.4s slower than Rosberg in every session so far.

Sebastian Vettel was fifth-quickest, followed by Felipe Massa, who landed up sixth-quickest with a fastest lap that included running wide at the final corner.

Jenson Button, Robert Kubica, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Nico Hülkenberg completed the top-ten.

One driver of note who failed to feature in the top-ten was Lewis Hamilton, who missed out on the chance to perform a qualifying-style run courtesy of a front brake duct issue.

There was also some action further down the field, with the particular stand-out being a fright for Virgin Racing’s Timo Glock when his front-left wheel parted company with his VR-01. Glock’s team-mate Lucas di Grassi lost more crucial mileage with a gearbox problem.

Karun Chandhok’s miserable weekend continued, and for the third session in a row he was unable to complete a single lap in his HRT Cosworth, with yet more gearbox problems in his car.

He looks likely to be ruled out for the rest of the weekend, with the Sporting Regulations stating that a driver must have participated in at least one practice session in order to be eligible to qualify for the racer proper.

No doubt someone from HRT will be making a beeline for the Stewards’ office to claim force majeure.

2010 Bahrain GP Practice 3 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:54.099	14
2.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1:54.368	13
3.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault	1:54.500	15
4.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1:54.533	13
5.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault	1:54.646	16
6.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:54.739	14
7.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	1:55.000	14
8.	Robert Kubica	Renault	1:55.331	15
9.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India Mercedes	1:55.432	11
10.	Nico Hülkenberg	Williams Cosworth	1:55.461	13
11.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	1:55.521	13
12.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	1:55.860	8
13.	Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber Ferrari	1:56.063	14
14.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth	1:56.259	15
15.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:56.295	17
16.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:56.504	16
17.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari	1:56.530	13
18.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1:56.811	16
19.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth	1:59.173	10
20.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Cosworth	1:59.789	15
21.	Jarno Trulli	Lotus Cosworth	2:01.259	5
22.	Bruno Senna	HRT Cosworth	2:04.001	11
23.	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin Racing Cosworth	no time	2
24.	Karun Chandhok	HRT Cosworth	no time