» 2013 Australian GP: Grosjean tops wet FP3

Romain Grosjean set the pace in the final free practice session for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. Ferrari duo Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa completed the top-three, while Sebastian Vettel suffered a late hydraulics failure and had to stop on-track.

However, the session was rain-affected from about fifteen minutes into proceedings, rendering the overall timesheet results rather useless when trying to predict some sort of form guide when qualifying comes around later this afternoon.

Proceedings started under rain-heavy skies when the pit lane opened at 2:00pm local time, and the teams quickly scrambled their drivers to clock up a few dry-weather lap times before the heavens opened.

Twenty minutes into proceedings and the track was desolate – save for windblown leaf litter in the squally conditions – and it took a further quarter of an hour before anyone opted for a run on wet-weather tyres.

Ultimately, Felipe Massa would lead the way with a timed effort some 20 seconds off Grosjean’s ultimate pace on the Pirelli full wet tyres. As a dry line began to emerge, the field switched to intermediate rubber.

Aside from Vettel’s stoppage, the session had no major incidents to report other than a few drivers running wide as they tried to explore the limits of grip around the Albert Park circuit.

Conditions are expected to remain similar leading into and during this afternoon’s qualifying session, which starts at 5:00pm local time.

2013 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 3 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E21	1:26.929		14
2.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F138	1:27.000	+ 0.071	7
3.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F138	1:27.241	+ 0.312	10
4.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM06	1:27.533	+ 0.604	9
5.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus F1 Renault E21	1:27.625	+ 0.696	12
6.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:27.849	+ 0.920	19
7.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:27.860	+ 0.931	16
8.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM06	1:28.069	+ 1.140	15
9.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:28.253	+ 1.324	18
10.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:28.253	+ 1.324	20
11.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:28.486	+ 1.557	13
12.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	1:29.808	+ 2.879	9
13.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	1:30.073	+ 3.144	16
14.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:30.388	+ 3.459	17
15.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault CT03	1:30.598	+ 3.669	20
16.	Charles Pic	Caterham Renault CT03	1:30.959	+ 4.030	19
17.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	1:33.236	+ 6.307	7
18.	Sergio Pérez	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	1:33.527	+ 6.598	8
19.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW35	1:39.232	+ 12.303	13
20.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault FW35	1:39.779	+ 12.850	13
21.	Max Chilton	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:42.872	+ 15.943	13
22.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:47.246	+ 20.317	9