Free Practice 3 – Kubica is most comfortable on a drying track

Robert Kubica achieved the best time with his F1.08 on a drying track during the third free practice session of the Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji.

Timo Glock on Toyota finishes second by maintaining the same pace as Friday ahead of Kubica’s teammate, Nick Heidfeld. The title contenders are far behind even with an improvement in their times as the session progresses. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) is still seventh and Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) eleventh.

The rain stopped before the start of the session, so the track was drying. Consequently, the performances were less evident than on Friday and the times reflected this with a seven-second difference compared to the previous day.

Glock, Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso), and Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren) were the first to hit the track. They initially had wet tires, but Hamilton switched to intermediate tires 18 minutes later. He took the top spot of the day but with only a 0.3-second lead.

He then briefly lost the first place to Glock before Massa took the lead with a 1:25.709 when only 23 minutes remained.

The Brazilian will stay in the lead until the last two minutes. Kubica takes over, and then it’s Nelson Piquet’s turn.

Heidfeld does the same and beats both his teammate and the Renault driver, but the Pole hasn’t said his last word and sets the fastest time of 1:25.087 in his final lap.

Glock secures the second fastest time a few moments later, just 0.084 seconds behind Kubica, with Piquet in third and Heidfeld in fourth.

The Japanese public’s favorite driver, Kazuki Nakajima (Williams) is in fifth position. David Coulthard (Red Bull) also improves his time to finish among the top six.

Massa is pushed back to seventh position followed by Mark Webber in the Red Bull, Fernando Alonso in the Renault, and Vettel for Toro Rosso.

The session saw countless off-track excursions into the run-off areas. In turn 1, Jarno Trulli spun, as did Kimi Räikkönen in turn 6.

Force India experienced a turbulent session with brake issues for Giancarlo Fisichella and a hydraulic leak for Adrian Sutil. They stayed in the pits for a large part of the hour and finally got out 10 minutes before the checkered flag but remained at the bottom of the timesheet.

Free Practice 3 Results – Japanese GP – Saturday, October 11, 2008