» Hamilton crashes out in FP3

Lewis Hamilton has given his hopes of a strong performance in today’s critical qualifying session a major blow, after he crashed out in the dying minutes of final practice at the Suzuka Circuit. Teammate Nico Rosberg headed proceedings, dominating the stopwatch in the final practice hour.

Moments after Rosberg posted a session-topping 1:33.228 – comfortably quickest of the entire weekend so far – Hamilton made a mistake on turn-in at the first corner, slid wide over the kerbs and straight into the tyre wall. The crashed caused damage to the front-left corner of his Mercedes, giving his mechanics a tough slog to ready his F1W05 in time for qualifying at 2:00pm local time.

That left Rosberg to enjoy an unchallenged run to the top of the timing screens to the tune of almost a second over his teammate and main title rival, who remained second-quickest after the chasing pack failed to depose him with their final flying laps.

Hamilton wasn’t the only high-profile driver to strike trouble of sorts in the session. Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel finished well down the order with barely ten laps run between them; the former’s was triggered by Ferrari’s decision to swap his power unit before qualifying, while the latter suffered from software gremlins in his Renault power unit.

Räikkönen’s teammate Fernando Alonso finished third quickest at the chequered flag, with Felipe Massa edging out Williams teammate Valtteri Bottas for fourth.

Daniel Ricciardo showed solid pace in his heavily-repaired Red Bull and went sixth-fastest, while McLaren rookie Kevin Magnussen improved with a late effort to xlaim seventh, ahead of the Toro Rosso pairing of Jean-Éric Vergne and Daniil Kvyat. Jenson Button completed the top-ten in the sister McLaren.

2014 Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 3 Results:

	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W05	1:33.228		14
2.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W05	1:34.210	+ 0.982	10
3.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F14T	1:34.439	+ 1.211	12
4.	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW36	1:34.564	+ 1.336	12
5.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW36	1:35.061	+ 1.833	16
6.	Daniel Ricciardo	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB10	1:35.086	+ 1.858	13
7.	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren Mercedes MP4-29	1:35.251	+ 2.023	16
8.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR9	1:35.494	+ 2.266	8
9.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR9	1:35.538	+ 2.310	17
10.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-29	1:35.549	+ 2.321	16
11.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes Mercedes VJM07	1:35.732	+ 2.504	15
12.	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari F14T	1:36.995	+ 2.767	5
13.	Sergio Pérez	Force India Mercedes Mercedes VJM07	1:36.365	+ 3.137	8
14.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C33	1:36.407	+ 3.179	22
15.	Sebastian Vettel	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB10	1:36.460	+ 3.232	6
16.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Team Renault E22	1:36.558	+ 3.330	19
17.	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus F1 Team Renault E22	1:36.617	+ 3.389	12
18.	Adrian Sutil	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C33	1:36.626	+ 3.398	20
19.	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham F1 Team Renault CT05	1:37.367	+ 4.139	12
20.	Max Chilton	Marussia F1 Team Ferrari MR03	1:37.883	+ 4.655	17
21.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia F1 Team Ferrari MR03	1:38.102	+ 4.874	15
22.	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham F1 Team Renault CT05	1:38.784	+ 5.556	12